Canvassing Board members stressed that they weren't rejecting the arguments made by Franken's attorneys, and they made it clear that they expect the issue to go to court.The state Canvassing Board, a panel of five arbiters charged with determining the winner in the overtime election tussle between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic rival Al Franken, unanimously voted this morning to deny the Franken campaign's request that rejected absentee ballots be included in the recount.
During the discussion, the board members stressed that they weren't rejecting the merits of the arguments made by Franken's attorneys. They also made it clear they expect the issue to be litigated separately from the recount procedure.
Also this morning, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who chairs the Canvassing Board, said that attorneys from each campaign have said they can find a way to trim the pile of ballots being challenged in counties across the state. Combined, the two sides are so far contesting more than 3,600 ballots.
"This would be a very great benefit to the Canvassing Board and the citizens of the state," Ritchie said early on at the board's meeting this morning.
Tuesday night, the Coleman campaign said that its senior counsel, Fritz Knaak, acknowledged in a fax to the Franken campaign that observers for both sides were being overly aggressive in challenging ballots "in a mounting game of ballot challenging that serves no useful purpose."
"This is not the way the recount process was intended to work," the correspondence continued, "and we are trying the patience and goodwill of election officials and volunteers throughout the state.
"While the Franken campaign began [Tuesday] morning challenging 25 ballots in one Sherburne County precinct, the vast majority without merit, it's obvious that our campaign volunteers felt the need to match these growing and unnecessary challenges throughout the day."
Knaak called the back-and-forth "an artificial game which has virtually no bearing on the outcome of this recount, as we know that the vast majority of these challenges will be rejected before we even get to the Canvassing Board on December 16th."
Knaak then asked Franken's camp to "join us ... in standing down in the game of ballot challenge one-upsmanship."
Rejected ballots
The Canvassing Board then turned its attention this morning to taking up Franken's request to include rejected absentee ballots in the final tally.
At stake are an unknown number of absentee ballots, out of several thousands rejected, that Franken's campaign says weren't counted because of administrative mistakes.
The board gave Franken a glimmer of hope after voting his motion down. Members agreed to seek legal advice and meet again soon to decide whether local election officials should sort through the rejected ballots. That would help determine whether any that were actually accepted didn't get counted and whether any rejections fell outside the rules for disqualification. But the board didn't speculate as to what would happen with those ballots.
At a subsequent news briefing, Franken recount attorney Marc Elias said the campaign is not going to appeal the Canvassing Board's decision. He said the camp was disappointed in the ruling but encouraged that it left open the possibility of sorting the ballots.
Elias declined to say whether the campaign is headed to court. He did say, "I'm certainly not going to take off the table the possibility of an election contest."
Coleman ended Election Night ahead of Franken but well within the margin needed to trigger a mandatory recount. The hand recount of every ballot, occurring in offices across the state, has done little to clarify who the winner might be as it nears completion.
The Star Tribune has analyzed reasons for absentee ballots being rejected in 28 counties, and only Ramsey and Itasca specifically cite election officials' error. In Ramsey County, it appeared that 53 rejections were tied to administrative error.After the full recount is done, the board will meet on Dec. 16, review disputed ballots and assemble a final report. The board aims to be done by Dec. 19, but it will take as long as needed. However, even after the board's work is done, court challenges are possible.
The Canvassing Board is chaired by Ritchie and includes Minnesota Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, Associate Justice G. Barry Anderson and Ramsey County District Judges Kathleen Gearin and Edward Cleary. Magnuson and Anderson were appointed by GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Gearin was elected to the bench in 1986, and Cleary was appointed in 2002 by Independent Gov. Jesse Ventura.