Senator Al Franken?

[phuloi]

George Soros Funding Al Franken's Recount Efforts

Thursday, November 20, 2008 12:03 PM

By: Jim Meyers Article Font Size



Left-wing billionaire George Soros is hosting a fundraiser on Thursday night to help Democrat Al Franken win the recount in Minnesota’s Senate election.


The gathering at Soros’ Manhattan home will raise money to help Franken’s campaign cover the cost of monitoring the statewide recount.


“The special guest: Al Gore, who knows a thing or two about recounts,” the New York Post reports.


Republican Sen. Norm Coleman leads Franken by just over 200 votes at last count, out of 2.9 million cast. The results of the hand recount are not expected to be released until mid-December.


Coleman remains confident. His spokesman Mark Drake said: “This race will not be decided by New York billionaires or the U.S. Senate. It will be decided by Minnesotans, and we are confident Sen. Coleman will prevail.”


Earlier this year Soros’ fortune was estimated at $9 billion.

[darrels joy]

Check it out.
Challenged ballots: You be the judge


by Than Tibbetts, Minnesota Public Radio
November 20, 2008
Representatives from the campaigns of Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken have been challenging ballots across the state.
It's your turn to play election judge. Tell us how you would rule in the case of these challenged ballots. Use this Minnesota state statute as your guide.


http://minnesota.publicradio.org/fea...enged_ballots/

[darrels joy]

Will the Senate Give Franken The Win EVEN IF HE LOSES?



Here's a little fun fact. Even after all the results are counted, and all the legal challenges have been answered, the Democratic Party Controlled Senate can vote to not seat Norm Coleman, to count disqualified ballots, even if the courts have ruled them inadmissible, or to call for a run-off election. Their reasoning can be no more logical than Harry Reid said so. The body has the power to determine its members' qualifications.The Senate has in rare cases inserted itself into elections, including a 1996 Louisiana race (where the senate overturned a tiny Republican victory by forcing a runoff) and a 1974 New Hampshire contest which the Democratic winner kept his small (10 vote) victory after the Senate, justifiably in this case, forced a re-vote.

Last week Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell voiced his opposition to the prospect of Senate involvement “I would hope that Washington partisans would refrain from injecting themselves into what is, by design, a nonpartisan process.” McConnell is right on when he talks about the the election process. The principal of the entire system depends on the Senate acting in an unbiased and responsible way. The Senate should simply choose the candidate who was rightfully elected in the first place, as shown on the state’s election certificate. Ah, but with the Democratic Party so close to that filibuster proof majority, it is doubtful that they will be unbiased and responsible, as Harry Reid so rarely falls into that category.

If Franken loses fairly, he will most assuredly go to the Senate, what will happen from there, well, here are some possibilities:

Franken may seek Senate’s help to win race
By Michael O'Brien

Al Franken’s (D) campaign may ask the Democratic-led Senate to intervene on his behalf to allow some disqualified absentee ballots to be counted in his quest to unseat Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.).

Franken attorney Marc Elias made the case to reporters Monday that as many as 1,000 absentee ballots were improperly disqualified and that the Senate or the courts may need to step in to resolve the issue.

“No recount can be considered accurate or complete until all the ballots cast by lawful voters are counted,” Elias said of the recount that became necessary when only about 200 votes separated the two candidates on Nov. 4.

Minnesota's Board of Canvassers ruled last Wednesday that it would not revisit the improperly disqualified ballots. The bipartisan board ruled unanimously that it did not have the authority to order that the ballots be reviewed and counted.

Elias said that of the 12,000 disqualified absentee ballots in the race, “as many as 1,000” ballots were improperly excluded, and should be counted. He added that the campaign would appeal to the Board of Canvassers, courts or the U.S. Senate to ensure those ballots are counted. Last week, Elias had indicated that the campaign would not directly appeal the board’s ruling.
The U.S. Constitution allows each congressional chamber to be the "Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called the Board of Canvassers’ decision to not count the absentee ballots “a cause for great concern” last week, fueling speculation that the Senate would explore the legality of the Minnesota recount’s results.

“If ultimately there is no remedy before the canvassing board or before the courts, then that is certainly an option,” Elias said of the Senate’s potential intervention in the election results.
“The Franken campaign has made it clear that the recounted votes and will of Minnesotans matter little to them, and that they intend to take their campaign to change the outcome of this election on to the United States Senate,” said Coleman campaign spokesman Mark Drake. “Al Franken should personally reject this strategy outright, and honor the right of Minnesotans to choose who their senator should be — and not allow lawsuits and the strong-arm tactics of the majority leader of the United States Senate to intervene in this process."

According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's recount tally, Coleman leads Franken by 282 votes with 86 percent of the recount complete. In total, 5,623 ballots have been challenged, with the Franken campaign having challenged 67 more votes than Coleman's campaign. The Franken campaign said it would announce withdrawn challenges later this week.

The Franken campaign maintained that Coleman only led by 73 votes, citing its tally, which includes determinations of a voter's intent made by neutral observers. Those determinations are not final until certified by the Board of Canvassers, and are not included in the Secretary of State's official tally.

http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2008/...ven-if-he.html

[phuloi]

As of now Coleman has a 276 lead in the recount. We all know that Franken will sue, but go to the Senate!? If in fact, that occurs, I would hope to see the disenfranchised voters of Minnesota hit the streets.

[darrels joy]

In Minnesota, recounting ballots is only the first step

By Rob Hotakainen

McClatchy Newspapers


MINNEAPOLIS — The only thing that might be longer than a bone-rattling Minnesota winter is the state's never-ending 2008 Senate race, which Jane Burton says is getting downright ridiculous.

After picking out her Carolina Fraser fir at the farmers market in north Minneapolis on Monday, Burton, a 59-year-old homemaker from Minneapolis, said that she might impose a new rule on Christmas Eve: No discussion of either candidate, Democrat Al Franken or Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.

Four weeks after Minnesotans cast 2.9 million ballots in an attempt to decide the costliest Senate contest in the nation, incumbent Coleman is clinging to a lead of 344 votes — with more than 92 percent of the ballots recounted as of Tuesday afternoon. Coleman began the recount with a lead of 215 votes.

On Tuesday, the Franken campaign said its internal count showed Coleman with a lead of only 50 votes. And Franken was expected to pick up more votes after officials in the Democratic stronghold of Ramsey County announced that 171 uncounted ballots had turned up.

While the official recount will end Friday, no one's expecting a winner to be announced anytime soon.

The Minnesota Canvassing Board must decide the fate of nearly 6,000 contested ballots before certifying the results on Dec. 16. And amid allegations of hundreds more missing votes and ballots that were improperly rejected, the Franken campaign is ready to take the fight to state courts or even to the U.S. Senate, which is the final arbiter.

If there is no winner declared by the time the new Congress convenes in January, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty will appoint a temporary senator.

If the Senate intervenes, as Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., now suggests it might, it wouldn't be unprecedented. The closest election in
Senate history ended in 1975: After spending six weeks debating the contest between Republican Louis Wyman and Democrat John Durkin in New Hampshire, the Senate declared the seat vacant, and a new election was held.

The long race has stained Minnesota's pristine political reputation. The campaign focused less on issues than on Franken's controversial writings as a comedian/satirist and questions of whether he had promptly paid his taxes, while Coleman was hounded by questions of whether he allowed wealthy donors to buy his suits and provide him with below-market housing in Washington.

"If there was a Senate race this cycle that needed to end on November 4th, it was this one," said Jennifer Duffy, Senate analyst with the Cook Political Report. "It was just so nasty."

But she said the real battle will begin if Senate Democrats try to seat Franken before legal challenges are concluded.

Coleman has been a constant Democratic target since defeating former Vice President Walter Mondale, who replaced Sen. Paul Wellstone on the ticket after a plane crash killed Wellstone only days before the 2002 election.

Coleman, the former Democratic mayor of St. Paul, had angered many party activists by endorsing Wellstone's re-election in 1996, then switching parties to run as the Republican candidate for governor in 1998, only to lose to former wrestler Jesse Ventura.

Franken was a close friend to Wellstone but was regarded by many as a carpetbagger when he moved to Minnesota from New York to launch his campaign.

After Georgians settled a runoff election on Tuesday, the Minnesota race is the only unsettled Senate contest. If Democrats picked up their 59th Senate seat in Georgia, the Minnesota outcome will determine whether they'll have a filibuster-proof majority in the next Congress.

At the Dunn Bros. coffee shop on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis, 29-year-old Adam Lewis, a graduate student in literature, said he didn't understand all the fuss about counting the votes and what's taking so long.

"I supported Franken, but if Coleman got more votes, then fine, let him win," he said. "Let's move on. I don't think it necessarily has to be so complicated."

But it has become plenty complicated.

Franken attorney Marc Elias said Tuesday that Coleman has inflated his lead because his campaign has challenged nearly 200 votes more than the Franken campaign, which results in them not being counted. Last week, the state Canvassing Board rejected Franken's attempt to count all rejected absentee ballots. But Elias said no recount will be complete until more than 9,000 of the rejected ballots are carefully examined and all missing ballots are found.

"Whether that happens at the county level, at the Canvassing Board, in the courts or the United States Senate or somewhere else, we do not yet know, but we are confident that in the end these votes will be counted," Elias said, predicting that Franken will win.

Coleman spokesman Mark Drake said his campaign is equally confident that Coleman still will have the lead when the recount is completed, calling it "a methodical, conscientious process" that provides a textbook example for a recount.

"We are seriously concerned by both the talk and actions we've seen from the Franken campaign signaling that they intend to go against the will of Minnesotans and take this to the floor of the U.S Senate for a political battle to start the new Congress and first term of President-elect Obama," Drake said.

Coleman and Franken are both acting like victors. Coleman tried to claim victory the day after the election, and again later, and has been congratulated by numerous GOP senators. And Franken caused a stir by going to Capitol Hill, where he met with Reid and other Senate Democrats.

When the Canvassing Board ruled against Franken, Reid called it "just one step in a process to ensure every Minnesotan's vote is counted." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., responded by saying that the recount "is being handled by Minnesotans, not D.C. politicians," and that Reid should remain neutral in case the election results go to the Senate.

Meantime, the disputed election has Minnesotans adjusting.

Cindy Reichert, director of elections for the city of Minneapolis, said that December is normally a slow month. But this week, she's overseeing the city's recount in a warehouse in northeast Minneapolis, where more than 100 people — sitting and standing around 12 long tables — examined and counted ballots, as volunteers for the Coleman and Franken campaigns watched.

Election judges placed disputed ballots in a special "Challenged Ballots Envelope" for delivery to the Canvassing Board. Reichert said the recount has been hard on her budget, forcing her to hire many part-time judges.

In suburban Edina, Bill Brice, 83, said he delayed work on his income tax returns — he usually likes to get an early start — so he can follow daily developments in the newspapers and on television.

"It's impossible to tell who's going to win," said Brice, a retired minister.

On the south side of the city near Lake Calhoun, retired banker Vaughn Rasmussen still has his yellow and blue Franken sign stuck in the snow in front of his house, next to his red and white plastic plug-in Santa. He said he has never before mingled political signs with the Christmas decorations in his front yard, but added: "The election is still going on — so I kept my sign up."

And at the tree lot, next to rows of towering firs, Burton shivered as snowflakes fell and a raw northerly wind reddened her cheeks. She said she has a son and daughter-in-law who are very much into politics, but that she'll try to steer them clear of election talk over Christmas.

"It was hard to vote for either one of them in the first place," she said.

"I'm not crazy about Franken, but I don't like Norm Coleman, either."

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/poli...ry/796525.html

[phuloi]

On a side note, Saxby Chambliss R,Ga. has won so the super majority by the dems won`t happen...just yet,anyhow.

[darrels joy]

Minneapolis discovery costs Franken 36 votes

By Jason Hoppin
jhoppin@pioneerpress.com
Updated: 12/03/2008 0538 PM CST


A recount worker searchs for the ten correct ballot boxes on her list, which were then opened up and looked into for uncounted ballots at the Minneapolis recount site on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2008. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)




What Maplewood giveth, Minneapolis taketh away.

Elections officials in Minnesota's largest city today discovered that one precinct came up 133 ballots short of election day totals, resulting in a net loss for Democratic challenger Al Franken of 36 votes.

The development wipes away what had been a boon for Franken in his bid to overtake Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, after Ramsey County officials found an additional 37 votes for Franken from a Maplewood precinct on Tuesday.

Minneapolis elections director Cindy Reichert said she believes the error occurred when election judges at the precinct on election night mistakenly ran ballots with write-in candidates through a counting machine twice.

There were 129 such ballots.

Reichert said although the numbers do not match exactly, she is confident that that's what happened and will report those numbers to the Secretary of State's Office. She also detailed a search for any potential missing envelopes that contain ballots, including opening the counting machine, talking to election judges and calling the church where the polling place was located.
"We believe that we have all the ballot envelopes here," Reichert said.

"There are human errors that are made on election day."

http://www.twincities.com/ci_11129187?nclick_check=1

Now if they will only vote as Republicans.

Joy

[darrels joy]

Wait, Doesn't Franken Make His Living Being Frivolous?

Franken campaign’s internal tally – which showed Franken up 22 votes at the end of last night – is based on the presumption that all of the challenges have been frivolous, and would be rejected by the Canvassing Board.

[darrels joy]

Franken Demands CSI Investigation


The Minnesota recount gets sillier by the day and would actually be funny if so much wasn't at sake. After a few days of finding ballots, NOW Franken is saying that 133 ballots have been LOST. And they have been lost from, and I am not making this up, DINKYTOWN. Al Franken campaign today reiterated its call for an "immediate and intensive search" for an envelope containing the Dinky ballots. He is demanding a forensic search for these missing ballots:

Yes America, Al Franken wants to bring in the Political equivalent of CSI. Of course if they are involved with Franken there might be a problem, since everyone that works with him probably have the same DNA, and very few teeth. More below:



Franken wants “forensic search” for missing ballots
By Michael O'Brien
Posted: 12/04/08 02:13 PM [ET]

Democrat Al Franken is seeking a "forensic search" by Minnesota election officials for 133 ballots missing in a Minneapolis precinct presumed to favor the Democrat in the undecided Senate race.

The Franken campaign demanded the special investigation while maintaining it has a 10-vote lead in the recount over incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman (R).

"We are calling upon the Secretary of State, Hennepin County, and the City of Minneapolis to complete an intensive search," said Franken attorney Marc Elias in a conference call, addressing reports that 133 votes have gone missing in a Minneapolis's Third Ward.

Elias said every person who touched or transported the ballots should be interviewed, and any polling place, vehicles, or warehouses that have held the ballots should be searched.

The ballots are said to favor Franken by 46 votes.

"The outcome of this election may be at stake," Elias said. "The integrity of the Minnesota electoral process is also at stake."

Coleman’s lead recount lawyer said there’s a “plausible explanation from Minneapolis election officials as to what occurred.”

“The issue in Ramsey County is pretty serious, but it may end up not mattering,” Attorney Fritz Knaak said.

Elias said that their internal tally assumes all challenged ballots will be overturned by the state's Board of Canvassers and shows Franken leading Coleman by 10 votes.

"We expect that we will not see any significant movement in the margin between now and the end of the hand recount," he said.

According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's tally, Coleman leads Franken by 316 votes in the state's contested recount, with 98 percent of votes having been recounted. The campaigns have together lodged a total of 6,326 challenges to ballots. Coleman's campaign announced it would withdraw 650 challenges today, while Franken withdrew 633 challenges yesterday.



http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2008/...stigation.html

[darrels joy]

MISSING MINNEAPOLIS BALLOTS FOUND-->Just Not The Ones They Were Looking For

Its like that old story, counting votes is like Sausage, you may enjoy eating it but under no circumstances do you want to see them made.
The vote counting process in Minnesota is so frightening and embarrassing. Votes are found in cars, on Machines that were never counted, its a joke. Yesterday Franken's team announced that there were 133 votes missing, of course many of the people involved say that the people were double counted and there are no missing votes. Today they found missing votes (12) but they are not from the missing batch. Are the Keystone Kops running the show?

Read the full story below:

Search for missing Minneapolis ballots finds some -- but not those ones

By JAMES ELI SHIFFER, Star Tribune
December 5, 2008

The search party looking for 133 missing ballots in the Minneapolis elections warehouse found some ballots all right, but not the ones they wanted.

This morning, 12 unsealed but apparently uncounted absentee ballots were found in a box filled with stacks of plastic-wrapped unused ballots. Minneapolis elections director Cindy Reichert speculated they were put there by a confused elections judge on Election Day and undiscovered until now, the final day of the historic U.S. Senate recount.

It's not clear whether the ballots will be counted, and their fate may be tied to the wrangling over whether to count rejected absentee ballots.

Still eluding the searchers was their main object -- the 133 ballots cast in a Dinkytown church, placed in an envelope, shipped to the warehouse and subsequently AWOL.

Elections officials thought the envelope was hiding somewhere among the voting machines, collapsible stands, shelving and boxes in the warehouse on Harding Street NE. Minneapolis election officials, joined by Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann, clean-election advocates and others, rolled the voting machines one by one across the floor, hoping to find an envelope underneath.

As usual, workers for the campaigns of Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken stood by as witnesses, on what was supposed to be the final day of their two-week vigil in the warehouse.

Speaking to Minnesota Public Radio this morning, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie compared the search to the needle in the haystack. He said that, in a careful way, officials are "dismantling the entire haystack."

"We really want to get our hands on those physical ballots," he said.
But the search was called off about 2 p.m. today, said one of the searchers, Mark Halvorson, director of Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota.

"I think we searched as thoroughly as we possibly could have," Halvorson said. That included an election official climbing on the 8-foot stacks of folded voting stations and peering in the cracks for the missing envelope. Halvorson said the head election judge recalls delivering all five envelopes to the warehouse. His car has been searched, but officials have not yet combed through University Lutheran Church of Hope, the precinct itself, he said. "I had hoped we would find it," Halvorson said. "We could speculate till the cows come home, I just don't know. I'm mystified."

http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2008/...ound-just.html