The missing 133 ballots in a Minneapolis precinct are going to stay missing - at least for now. City spokesman Matt Laible said today that officials had suspended the search for the ballots that began after they turned up missing in the waning hours of last week's U.S. Senate recount.
The matter will be turned over to the state Canvassing Board, which will decide whether the 133 will be officially counted, Laible said.
The ballots at issue are from the Dinkytown neighborhood, a heavily Democratic area, and a comparison of Election Day results and recount totals indicates that not counting them could cost Franken a net of 46 votes. That has prompted his campaign to complain loudly about the disappearance. The campaign of Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, however, expressed skepticism that the ballots were truly lost.
After the discovery of the ballots' disappearance Wednesday, city elections officials scoured the warehouse in northeast Minneapolis where the recount was conducted, on the belief that the ballots, in a single envelope, had made it from the church to the warehouse.
Franken's campaign also complained today that several counties are balking at separating out crucial rejected absentee ballots in the U.S. Senate recount, saying the process is necessary to ensure that persons casting votes be accurately counted. |