Ballots that campaigns bumped could cost voters $1000s to get counted

It was a part of a Minnesota Supreme Court order that few could love. Last month the campaigns of Al Franken and Norm Coleman got the right, by a 3-2 court ruling, to reject absentee ballots in the state’s Senate recount that election officials had determined were lawfully cast.

And reject they did, leaving about 400 individual voters with only one way to re-enfranchise themselves: by filing a lawsuit of their own. But they have to do it by Jan. 12, and it could cost as much as $5,000 per voter.

WSJ recount editorial prompts non-meek response from Judge Cleary

A much-criticized Jan. 5 Wall Street Journal editorial that called the Minnesota State Canvassing Board “meek,” Secretary of State Mark Ritchie a man of partisan “machinations,” and Al Franken — who the board determined had won 225 more votes in the statewide recount than former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman — “tainted and undeserving,” has prompted a retort from one of its targets: State Canvassing Board member Edward Cleary.

Franken deemed winner of Senate recount, but Coleman will contest in court

Al Franken has emerged from the Senate recount with a 225-vote lead over incumbent Norm Coleman. The five-member State Canvassing Board unanimously certified the results at a hearing Monday afternoon. Nearly two months after the election, and following a painstaking statewide manual recount of nearly three million ballots, Franken received 1,212,431 votes, while Coleman earned 1,212,206.

Coleman camp: ‘We’ll take legal action to remedy Franken’s artificial lead’

Norm Coleman’s attorneys vowed to go to court to make up the ground the incumbent Republican lost today after more than 900 absentee ballots that had been mistakenly rejected were tallied, increasing Democratic challenger Al Franken’s lead for Coleman’s U.S. Senate seat to 225. “We’ll take whatever legal action … to remedy this artificial lead,” said Coleman recount attorney Fritz Knaak.

“I’ve had better days,” Knaak conceded. “The numbers are what they are.” But he repeated that the “process was broken” and predicted that “the election will still be called in Coleman’s favor.”

Mark Ritchie, MVP: Recount chief among 2008′s top progressives

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie must be a progressive powerhouse. He got dual mentions (of sorts) in The Nation’s list of Most Valuable Progressives: one for his work overseeing the statewide recount and one by way of…

GOP attacks on The UpTake: Another attempt to smear the process that may deal Coleman defeat?

What should we make of Minnesota Democrats Exposed blogger Michael Brodkorb’s attack on Secretary of State Mark Ritchie for including a benign mention of The UpTake’s live video feeds of the Canvassing Board’s recent meetings? A tempest in a teapot? An insider media squabble? Try this on for size: Maybe it’s part of a GOP plan to smear the recount process that seems increasingly likely to result in Republican Sen. Norm Coleman’s defeat.

The 12 Dates of Recount: Details for regional confabs on absentee votes

Here, direct from Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie himself, are the dates and times of a dozen public meetings on the U.S. Senate recount to be held on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday this week at locations around…

U.S. Senate recount: canvassing board rebuffs Coleman campaign

Sen. Norm Coleman’s campaign argued this morning that the state canvassing board should reconsider decisions on at least 16 ballots that it believes were awarded to the wrong candidate in the U.S. Senate contest. The five-member panel agreed to examine the ballots in question, but ultimately decided that their initial determinations on the vote allocations would stand.

Ritchie: Recount is A-OK. Coleman: I want a TRO.

Friday afternoon as Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was lauding the work of the State Canvassing Board…

We just finished a very successful week. … It feels great. … The nation can heal from the mess in

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Franken lead grows; Coleman campaign returns to court

Shortly after the state canvassing board reconvened this morning, Al Franken moved into the lead for the first time during the U.S. Senate recount. The Democrat’s lead grew to more than 250 votes by the time the five-member panel broke for lunch and It is expected to continue increasing throughout the day.