marc elias

Al Franken’s campaign has written to Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie asking that he be issued a certificate declaring him the winner of the U.S. Senate contest. Last week the state Canvassing Board certified results showing that Franken won the election by 225 votes, but former Sen. Norm Coleman has contested the results in state court.

Democrat Al Franken’s campaign attorney Marc Elias, responding to former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s filing of an election contest today, said the Republican’s legal move “could charitably be called an uphill battle to try to overturn the will of the people.”

Elias dismissed the Coleman suit, which alleges mistakes in the recently concluded statewiderecount, as being without merit — “essentially the same thin gruel, warmed over leftovers we’ve all been served over the last few weeks.”

A new lawsuit (pdf) by the campaign of U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman asks the Minnesota Supreme Court to order the counting of votes from hundreds of absentee ballots that local officials have twice rejected as invalid.
Democrat Al Franken’s campaign responded with scorn. ”Norm Coleman and I are both native New Yorkers, and this is the height [...]

You can’t tell the players in the Minnesota Senate recount drama with a scorecard — even a Politico blog that’s called The Scoreboard misattributed a quote (since corrected) on Monday from Marc Elias, a lawyer for Al Franken, as coming from Fritz Knaak, U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s recount attorney. Minnesota media mostly keep those two straight, but even locals find the profusion of Scandinavian surnames in the various recount venues vexing. More including the Anderson Effect and a Sven-and-Ole routine, after the jump.

During the Saturday morning press conference at which Al Franken’s campaign projected a victory in Minnesota’s protracted Senate contest by at least 35 votes, I thought I heard recount attorney Marc Elias say that Franken himself would speak publicly about the race next Tuesday. But a statement the Franken campaign issued afterward put less specific [...]

Democrat Al Franken will not lose the lead he gained Friday in the Minnesota Senate recount, his campaign’s recount attorney said today. Franken’s margin over Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman will stand at between 35 and 50 votes next Tuesday, after the State Canvassing Board adds back thousands of withdrawn ballot challenges to its tally.

The pronouncement that Franken will soon be Minnesota’s senator-elect is not just the campaign talking; it’s the campaign’s math talking. Franken’s figures always “assumed those [challenged] ballots would end up in the tally of the candidate for whom each one was originally called,” as a campaign statement put it. “[T]he internal count can predict the result of that work with certainty: a 35-50 vote lead for Franken.”

A divided Minnesota Supreme Court ruled today that wrongly rejected absentee ballots should be counted in the U.S. Senate race. But the process ordered by the three-justice majority mandates that both campaigns must agree that a ballot was improperly invalidated if it is to be included in the final tally. The opinion was authored by Helen Meyer, with fellow justices Lorie Skjerven Gildea and Christopher Dietzen joining her in the majority. Justices Alan Page and Paul Anderson wrote strongly worded dissents, arguing that the ruling is inconsistent and inadequate for ensuring that every properly cast vote is counted.

The final step in the statewide manual recount of the U.S. Senate race is underway. Shortly after noon, the five-member canvassing board began examining the roughly 1,500 ballots that have been challenged by the campaigns of Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken.

A number of unanswered questions continue to cloud the ultimate outcome of the U.S. Senate recount. What will become of wrongly rejected absentee ballots? Will 133 lost Minneapolis ballots be included in the recount? How many challenged ballots will remain when the statewide canvassing board begins examining the contested votes early next week? And will the election ultimately be decided by the courts or the U.S. Senate?

Al Franken’s Senate campaign said today it was withdrawing some 425 more of the ballot challenges its representatives made during Minnesota’s statewide election recount. Together Franken and his opponent, Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, made 1,283 initial withdrawals last week from their combined total of 6,655 challenged ballots. Franken recount attorney Marc Elias told reporters the campaign would continue reviewing — and if need be, withdrawing — challenged ballots through Dec. 16, when the State Canvassing Board meets to begin a three-day process of tallying the recount.