fritz knaak

The Minnesota Independent liveblogged and tweeted (at MnIndyLIVE) the Nov. 26 State Canvassing Board meeting, at which Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie led the five-person board in considering the Al Franken for Senate campaign’s request that they find a way to count votes from all improperly rejected absentee ballots.

The fight over the closest Senate contest in Minnesota history turned to the Ramsey County Courthouse this morning. In a hearing before Judge Dale Lindman, Al Franken’s campaign argued that Ramsey County election officials should be required to turn over information about rejected absentee ballots. Attorney David Lillehaug made the case that the names of all voters who had their ballots invalidated, along with the reason for that decision, should be provided. “That information is critical to the plaintiff,” he stated

As David Brauer and Emily Kaiser both point out, Michele Bachmann’s Tuesday appearance on Hannity & Colmes also included another “retread”: the now-disproven story about 32 ballots being left in Minneapolis election director Cindy Reichert’s car. Reichert says it never happened, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie swears the same, and even Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty [...]

We won. We won. We won. If Norm Coleman’s campaign repeats this mantra often enough, perhaps it will actually come true. At least that seems to be the reasoning of the Senator’s political camp. “We think we’re three for three right now,” Fritz Knaak, the lead attorney for the Republican, told reporters just moments after a statewide canvassing board officially initiated a recount in the closest U.S. Senate race in Minnesota history. “He’s got more votes than the other side. That’s how it works in our system.”

The Minnesota Independent liveblogged as the state’s Canvassing Board met today to approve a plan for a recount in the U.S. Senate election. After the meeting, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie held a press conference and we liveblogged that too. Find out why someone said the word “Embarass,” what Mark Ritchie had for breakfast, and whether the recount will really take until August.