Monthly Archive for December, 2008
Shirley Graham was astonished to learn that a lawyer from Norm Coleman’s campaign on Tuesday blocked her absentee ballot from being added to the U.S. Senate recount.
“I’m an election judge,” said Graham, of Duluth. “I expected to be the last person whose ballot wouldn’t be counted.”
Coleman’s camp, which rejected 59 of the 60 ballots set aside Tuesday in St. Louis County, objected to Graham’s ballot on the grounds that the date next to her signature did not match the date next to the signature of her witness, Jack Armstrong.
Shocking that the Coleman campaign would be hyper aggressive in throwing out ballots in heavily DFL St. Louis County. I bet their not so particular down in Dakota County. This just proves that Norm Coleman isn’t interested in seeing every vote count, he’s only interested in seeing every Norm Coleman vote count. Nate Silver has a good take on Coleman’s shenanigans:
…the Coleman campaign is getting away with blocking ballots for asinine reasons. In the case cited above, for instance, the ballot was rejected because the date provided by the voucher did not match the date the date provided by the voter. Not only is there no requirement that the dates of the signatures match — there is no requirement that the signatures are dated, period (see the applicable statutes for yourself here and here).
But, there is hope that Coleman’s tactics may backfire. Turns out Graham voted for Coleman.
In a sadistic way I almost want to find out what kind of ridiculous claims Team Coleman will come up with if he indeed becomes the sore loser.
Democratic candidate Al Franken now holds a 50 vote lead over Republican Sen. Norm Coleman with almost all of the counting in Minnesota’s Senate race done.
Franken’s lead grew by a few votes on Tuesday when the state Canvassing Board finished allocating thousands of ballots that had been held up due to candidate challenges.
Coleman’s hopes now ride on a pool of uncounted absentee ballots that will be opened before next week. The size of that pile is in dispute but it is thought to be around 1,350. Coleman’s campaign wants to add 650 more to the stack.
Even if the board declares a winner next week, the race won’t be over. The losing party is expected to challenge the outcome in court.
A few weeks ago, everyone was talking about how the wrongly rejected absentees were likely to favor Franken. Now the AP is reporting that those same ballots are Coleman’s best shot at winning. That means Norm doesn’t have much of a shot at all.
Today, the state canvassing board completed an important step in this process. I’m glad to be ahead, and as it appears that we’re on track to win, I want Minnesotans to know that I’m ready to get to work for them in Washington on Day One. We still need to ensure that Minnesotans whose absentee ballots were improperly rejected aren’t disenfranchised, but we are close to the finish line. And we should all be proud of our state’s electoral process, and grateful for the dedication of our public servants, from the state canvassing board down to elections officials at the local level.
This is fairly serious and I would be rather confident that Franken is not wanting to make the same mistake Coleman did by preemptively declaring victory. The numbers are there and the counting has been accurate, transparent and solid.
If Franken indeed wins, almost undoubtably Coleman will be a sore loser and find brand new reasons why the recount suddenly should be invalidated. Unfortunately for Team Coleman, the process has been so transparent, in the open and scrutinized heavily by the independent and mainstream media that it is very unlikely they’ll have anything relevant to contest.
That’s not to say they won’t try though. The right-wing parrot blogs are currently doing a clip-job of old quotes to try to create a non-existent “double ballot” issue — I presume Team Coleman will give them the dog whistle to start blogging about some other false “irregularity” soon.
Although state law gives the governor power to fill a Senate vacancy, most think Gov. Tim Pawlenty would likely have no role, or inclination, to plug the gap. The Senate must first declare the seat vacant, some experts say, and it is unlikely to do so amid an ongoing election dispute.
The governor’s office last week said Pawlenty had the authority to appoint a senator only in the case of a permanent vacancy and did not view a temporary gap caused by the recount as applicable.
Amy Klobuchar chimes in as well. It’s the first time I’ve seen her quoted about what might happen and it is worth noting she may play a key role:
Regarding the length of a vacancy, Klobuchar said she believes there is still “a good possibility” that the Canvassing Board will finish up by Jan. 6 and even a better chance that Minnesota will have a new senator a week or so later.
“If the Canvassing Board declares a winner, that should be our senator,” she said, even if a court challenge were to follow. “[The Senate] could seat a senator pending the litigation.”
The way it’s looking now is that when all the ballots are counted and the results certified, Al Franken will likely be our next Senator and will be seated as our Seantor. Team Coleman is likely preparing multiple new ways to try to contest the results as their current ideas (e.g. “there’s duplicate ballots”, “Mark Ritchie is a communist”, “the Canvassing Board is biased”) have been baseless.
In the mean time, have a merry Christmas and happy holidays!
UPDATE: I’ve made some database repairs and restored the old theme. Are things looking okay for everyone now? (if you’re still seeing the generic theme, you may need to clear your cache or, if you use Firefox, do a “control-shift-r” to see the changes)
An urgent message from our Newsmax Sponsor, Republican National Lawyer Association.
Al Franken, the liberal comedian, is not happy Minnesotans voted to defeat him in a close election this past election day.
He and is his liberal allies are working feverishingly to steal the Minnesota Senate election.
In fact, some press reports claim that after a “recount” Al Franken is now in the lead!
We at the Republican National Lawyers Association have taken the lead to stop Franken and his dirty tricks.
But we need your urgent help.
Continue reading ‘Right-Wing Brainwashing Machine In High Gear’
This brings the announced candidates to Susan Gaertner, Tom Bakk, and Paul Thissen, and a speculated list of thousands.
FRANKEN CAMPAIGN FILES NEW BRIEF WITH CANVASSING BOARD EXPOSING COLEMAN LIES ABOUT “DUPLICATE BALLOT” ISSUEEmails Reveal: Coleman Lawyer Previously OPPOSED Sustaining These ChallengesSAINT PAUL [12/18/08] - The Franken campaign today filed a supplemental brief with the state canvassing board exposing that the Coleman campaign, contrary to its last-minute desperate attempt to change the rules of the recount, previously argued that original ballots should be counted even when no corresponding duplicate ballot can be located.From the Franken brief:
If the Board were to eliminate all originals at this point, it would - by definition - necessarily disenfranchise all of those voters, which would include all of the ballots properly duplicated by counties during the course of the recount in reliance upon the rules adopted by the Secretary of State and this Board. Such a sweeping disenfranchisement would be unprecedented in Minnesota history.
The brief includes emails from Coleman attorney Tony Trimble to the Secretary of State’s office like the following from November 19:
TRIMBLE: We believe that duplicate ballots should be counted if no corresponding original can be found, as this was a ballot cast on election night. A challenge to a duplicate ballot for which no original can be found is a frivolous challenge, because it does not relate to voter intent. Any challenge to a duplicate ballot should be made within an election contest and is not within the limited jurisdiction of an administrative recount. We will request the Minnesota State Canvassing Board to reject any challenges to duplicate ballots as groundless and frivolous (if the same are brought to the Canvassing Board).
Communications Director Andy Barr:
“The Coleman campaign is going to lose this recount, and now that they’ve figured that out, they’re panicking. They lied to the press and the public about going to the Supreme Court to seek “uniform standards” when they really just wanted to throw out lawful ballots. Now they are lying again. This is a bogus issue. And this desperate ploy goes beyond trying to change the rules in the middle of the game - it’s trying to change the rules after you’ve already lost the game.”
You can download the Franken brief here.
You can download the attached emails from Coleman attorneys here.
The UpTake has continually been providing fantastic live coverage as well as recap videos such as the humorous highlight reel above.
Former Minnesota Viking quarterback Daunte Culpepper has been cleared of charges in the Lake Minnetonka boating incident from last season, reports Associated Press:
A judge ruled there wasn’t probable cause to determine a crime was committed by Culpepper, one of four Minnesota Vikings accused of misdemeanor lewd conduct during the cruise last fall on a suburban lake.
Considering all the evidence and witnesses, I consider this an incredibly impressive feat for an attorney to accomplish.
In addition to Laurie Coleman having her own representation, I find it notable that she is now being represented by Earl Gray himself. Norm Coleman’s attorney, Doug Kelley, is across the river in Minneapolis.
Four of Minnesota’s biggest legal guns have cast their shadows over two lawsuits that have drawn the attention of the FBI.
They have been retained by U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman; his wife, Laurie; Jim Hays, her insurance company employer; and Nasser Kazeminy, a multi-millionaire friend of the Colemans who is accused in the lawsuits of sending them money in 2007 through Hays’ company. Coleman’s Senate ethics form reports no such payment.
Three of the lawyers are former assistant U.S. attorneys who have prosecuted white-collar criminal cases. The fourth attorney has a reputation among prosecutors, defense colleagues and judges for thoroughness and aggressiveness wrapped in a civil demeanor.
But here’s the weird part:
Norm Coleman has hired Doug Kelley, Laurie Coleman is represented by Earl Gray, Hays is aligned with Doug Peterson and Kazeminy has secured the services of Joe Friedberg.
Did you catch that? Why does Laurie Coleman have her own attorney? Is she being thrown under the bus? Is Laurie Coleman going to turn on Norm and dish to the FBI?
El Tinklenberg has about $500,000 in the bank. This is frustrating for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the airtime you can buy with a half a million dollars. But Joe’s analysis gets to the core of the remaining dough, and that is that most likely the Tinklenberg campaign was simply overwhelmed by the amount of money they had pouring in in the last few weeks of the campaign.
It also highlights one of the problems with the netroots and that is specifically the use of ancillary services like ActBlue. The argument in favor of using sites like ActBlue is it allows for the netroots to quantify their contributions to campaigns, but what happens when you donate through ActBlue is that a check gets cut by ActBlue and sent to the campaigns you donate to. That’s why usually I’d send people straight to campaigns fundraising pages, that turn around can be a real problem for campaigns. How much of that 500K did Tink get from Monday the 3rd of November on? I don’t think it was a substantial amount — just something to consider.
But finally the most important thing to consider is — what happens to those fat stacks of cash now? I think (and excuse me if I’m wrong, I’ve got finals and just don’t care enough to do the minutes of research) he can dole out $2000 to individual candidate committees, he could give large sums to party units or… he could just sit on it and run again in 2 years. El would be 60, which isn’t particularly old for a member of congress, he’d have a lot of money to start his campaign with and he’d have one election cycle of congressional campaign experience.
We’ll have to watch what he does with his money to get a good grasp on what he intends to do in two years.
Star Tribune management is blowing up their columnist roster.
According to a buyout memo released this afternoon and newsroom sources, Nick Coleman and Katherine Kersten will lose their columns, though they may be able to remain at the paper as reporters.
To put it mildly, that would be a stretch for Kersten, who has never held such a journalism job. Expect a gigantic eruption from the right wing.
I’m sad to see Coleman go, but (sorry Nick) if it means Kersten gets the ax, I’d dump him everyday of the week and twice on Tuesday. She’s such an embarrassment.
By the way, I hope the Strib plans on having at least one conservative voice in their paper. I just hope its not a race baiting lunatic like Kersten.
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