People, politics, science, and whatnot
No…not for this—at least, not yet.
Rather, the former Senator Norm Coleman is challenging his loss to Senator-elect Al Franken.
We know that Franken can get at least this vote removed from Coleman’s total, if the candidates decide to scour the state for illegal votes.
Senator Norm Coleman got a double dose of bad new today.
The State Canvassing Board certified that Al Franken won the Minnesota Senate election by a 225 vote margin. “Senator Al Franken”…I like the sound of it!
Even so, the Certificate of Election must await the conclusion of any election challenge. And Coleman will probably launch an election challenge.
The Board Certification came on the heels of a Minnesota Supreme Court decision that dealt Coleman another “job-security” setback. They denied his motion to reconsider 654 absentee ballots that had been rejected by state canvassing boards—twice. The decision was signed by (a hero from my youth, former Minnesota Viking defensive tackle turned Associate Supreme Court Justice) Alan Page. It points out that their original Supreme Court order required unanimous agreement by the campaigns, the county Canvassing Boards, and the state Canvassing Board for an improperly rejected absentee envelope to be opened and the ballot potentially tallied in the recount. (That previous decision was a lousy one—the counties should have been the only authority on whether absentee ballots were validly submitted.) The Supreme Court, essentially, told Coleman to file an election challenge.
Coleman lawyer Fritz Knaak responded to the court decision:
Given our campaign’s unwavering commitment to ensuring that the vote of no Minnesotan is disenfranchised, today’s ruling by the Minnesota Supreme Court is both disappointing and disheartening.
[…]The Coleman campaign has consistently and continually fought to have every validly cast vote counted, and for the integrity of Minnesota’s election system, we will not stop now.
“Unwavering?” “Consistently and continually fought?” This statement amounts to a flat-out lie. Late last year, the county elections officials had identified a statewide pool of 1,346 absentee ballots that had been improperly rejected on election day. These are the ballots that the elections officials decided were, in fact, properly cast (the ballots were still sealed in an envelope) and mistakenly rejected.
The Franken campaign asked the Coleman campaign to accept the entire statewide pool of 1,346 ballots. The Coleman campaign declined. Instead, something of a tit-for-tat game ensued in which only 933 absentees were added back into the ballot pool. If Coleman wanted every legitimate vote to count, he would have accepted the decisions of the local election officials on what was and what was not a properly cast absentee ballot. Coleman has disenfranchised 413 voters.
Frankly, I welcome the election contest. It means that those improperly rejected ballots will most likely be counted. Minnesota election law (203B.12 Subd 2) offers four reasons to reject an absentee ballot:
This seems pretty straightforward. By Minnesota law, “there is no other reason for rejecting an absentee ballot.”
The Coleman campaign has identified their own pool of ballots (largely from Republican-leaning parts of the state) that local election officials rejected (twice) as improperly cast, but that the campaign believes were properly cast. Most (or all) of them were rejected because of a signature mismatch. Of course the Franken folks will likely identify a similar-sized pool of signature-mismatch ballots from Democratic-leaning parts of the state. The result will be a wash, and perhaps a slight advantage to Franken. (The extremes of voters—poorest, least literate, non-native English speaking, etc.—tend to vote Democratic.)
The whole thing is unlikely to work in Coleman’s favor.
In related news…the Minnesota media are now asking the really hard questions: Minnesota Public Radio asks, “Where’s Al?”, and MinnPost asks “Is there or isn’t there a Norm Coleman Senate office?”
You know…somebody should invent some kind of independent “informational source” that can keep in contact with and report on people involved in these important issues….
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says:
I really do believe President Bush is the worst president we’ve ever had.
How brave…Bush has less than three weeks in office and Reid gets all bloggy in his feelings for Dubya. Besides, Harry, that is soooo 2005.
If Reid had any cojoes we could remember Bush by his achievements in office, not his failures.
Specifically, we could fondly remember Bush as the first President to be tried, convicted, and hanged for treason.
Or maybe war crimes.
Or both!
Tomorrow, the Minnesota State Canvassing Board will certify Al Franken the winner of the senatorial election with a 225 vote margin over Sen. Norm Coleman.
A Certificate of Election, however, will not be granted until all legal challenges are concluded. Yesterday it sure looked like the Coleman team was all set for a challenge.
Given the magnitude of Franken’s lead as of yesterday afternoon, Phoenix Woman senses a change in the rhetoric from the Coleman campaign. Perhaps a lawsuit will not be forthcoming.
If Coleman does contest the election it could hold up seating Franken for months. If the Washington state gubernatorial election contest (2004 election, contested in 2005) is any guide, each side will spend at least a couple of million dollars for the legal contest.
From the batches of disputed ballots cited by Coleman’s lawyers, Coleman cannot win just on the disputed ballots—the supposed double counted ballots that would subtract 110 votes from Franken and the 46 votes that went missing from a single precinct and were awarded to Franken using election night returns.
Of course Coleman has a Supreme court decision pending in which his campaign has second-guessed election judges who disqualified about 600 absentee ballots for the second time. If Coleman gets a favorable decision in that case, he might have a chance. Otherwise, not so much.
In fact, if Coleman loses the Supreme court case, his best course of action might be to do what Republicans did in Washington state in 2005: initiate an election contest and then hunt down illegal votes from urban areas. Specifically, he might find some voting felons who had not had their civil rights restored, identify a handful of mentally incompetent voters, and maybe even dig up a few “dead voters” (typically absentee voters whose grieving spouse filled out and mailed their loved-ones ballot). The big challenge will then be to prove (likely at the level of “clear and convincing evidence”) how these folks voted. The Franken campaign would almost certainly respond in kind. And it would almost certainly be a wash…except each side would have spend millions of dollars doing so.
In Washington state, the Republicans lost the election contest. The millions they spent did do some serious harm to Gov. Christine Gregoire for about three years. But in the 2008 rematch of the 2004 election, Gregoire had overcome the damage and won handily. Based on how well the Franken campaign has “messaged” during the recount, I suspect that the Minnesota Republicans have far less to gain in terms of PR should they contest the election. In other words, the PR gains simply may not be worth a couple of million bucks.
Earlier this week, the campaigns of Sen. Norm Coleman and satirist Al Franken agreed to count 933 improperly rejected absentee ballots. The ballots were quickly tallied by the State Canvassing Board today, and Franken has moved from a 49 vote lead to a 225 vote lead.
(For rather obscure reasons, I wish Franken’s lead was 229 votes, but we cannot have everything in life, can we?)
At this point, Franken is almost certain to win. Unless…. There is one pending action that might change the outcome: the Coleman campaign has asked the Supreme court to permit the campaigns to scrutinize an additional 645 rejected absentee ballots. The Supreme court will likely rule on the request by Monday. If they agree, it is still not certain that Coleman will overtake Franken’s lead.
Finally, the Coleman campaign will probably launch an election contest with the courts. The Coleman campaign is particularly concerned about some ballots that were duplicated and then, supposedly, both the original and duplicated ballots were counted in the recount. But given that the Coleman campaign originally suggested that there were only 130 to 150 such ballots, that reason simply isn’t enough to wipe out Franken’s lead. They will have to find some more reasons to toss out Franken votes.
I’m sure they will get creative. But a Coleman win is now pretty much a long shot.
Maddow: OSHA asleep on the job (via Crooks and Liars).
The 2008 Golden Duke awards (via TalkingPointsMemo): Blagojevich’s new year surprise:
Headzup: Warren and Christophobia.
TPM: Sunday talking head round-up (via TalkingPointsMemo).
Maddow: The revisionist A-team goes to work.
Ann Telnaes: Rep. Bobby Rush’s endorsement.
Young Turks: The story of Saint Nicholas.
Headzup: Convicting a torturer.
The impending break-up of the United States.
A New Year (and just one second too late):
Headzup: Bush’s new ways to break the law.
Letterman: How’d Shrub do? (Via Daily Kos.)
ValuJet AirTran mistreats Muslim family:
Young Turks: Zbigniew Brzezinski hands Joe Scarborough his ass.
Sorry: An Apology for the Bush Administration 2001-2009.
RNC chair candidate puts Barack the Magic Negro back in the news:
Maddow: RNC on Bush the socialist.
Young Turks: Cashing in on Tripp and a trip.
Tweety on McCain’s “erotic” response (via Daily Kos).
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here. Have you seen a fun, interesting, or important new political video? Drop me a line.
What a long, strange year it’s been. Twenty four hours and one second longer than most. Yeah…there were huge victories like the November elections. But the last 12 months under the Bush administration left me feeling like I was witnessing something akin to the fall of Rome. Who could have imagined a year ago that housing prices would tumble, investments of all types would vanish into a wisps of smoke, unemployment would soar to levels not seen for decades, the national debt would balloon to over $10.5 trillion, leaving to each one of us a $35,000 share of the debt.
In reviewing that last eight years, I have to wonder if a single administration could have done more damage to this country if they had actually set their mind to it? The bottom line: Bush will leave office soon, while the country is in the midst of a national disaster far greater than anything that happened during his first year as President.
Oh, yeah…happy new year!
This is bound to give U.S. Customs a collective aneurism:
Northwest Airlines Flight 59 had 124 passengers when it left the Netherlands. It had 125 when it landed in Boston. A Ugandan woman went into labor and gave birth to an apparently healthy baby girl over the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday during the eight-hour flight from Amsterdam.
Uh’ oh! The kid isn’t listed on the passenger manifest as required by the FAA, she doesn’t have a passport, she has no proof of citizenship, and has, apparently, no country of birth.
Oh…wait….
Customs officials deemed Sasha a Canadian citizen because of the airspace she was born in. The flight landed about 45 minutes after the birth.
No word yet on whether Canadian officials will send Sasha to Saudi Arabia for “interrogation.”
Today Al Franken’s (unofficial) lead over Sen. Norm Coleman grew by a few more votes to 50.
The Coleman campaign is not so certain:
Lawyers for the Coleman campaign called Mr. Franken’s margin, which grew by four votes on Tuesday, an “artificial lead”….
I’ve read the “artificial lead” line in a number of media account, but I’ve not seen Coleman’s explanation of what is “artificial” about it. There are several possibilities:
I suspect it is four, but there may be a touch of five in there as well.
From the City of Blaine, Washington’s Official Web Site:
** Important Notice to Airport Users **
- The Blaine Municipal Airport is scheduled to permanently close on December 31, 2008.
- All Aircraft tied-down/hangered at the airport should be removed from the field before that date.
- Beginning December 31, 2008 this airport will not be operational and aircraft attempting to the use the airport will be in violation of local and federal regulations.
Awww…Geezzzz. Another Washington State general aviation airport closing down. I’ve been meaning to fly there, but just haven’t had the chance. (Here is some state information on the soon-to-be-former airport.)
The closure has been along time in coming. One of the chief critics of the airport, some wanker named Dennis Hill, thinks the airport property would be better used for to bring industrial jobs back to Blaine. So can you guess what Mr. Hill does? Right…he’s not an industrial tycoon ready to invest big bucks into some new industry for Blaine. You got it…he’s a fucking realtor.
At least he’ll get something out of the closure. I’m not so sure about the rest of the city. The most recent Washington state economic impact assessment suggests that the airport contributes $901,580 to the economy annually.
Good luck in establishing that new industrial base, Mr. Hill.
If you are interested in learning more about (and even seeing remnants of) the hundreds of lost airports in Washington state, check out the intriguing Lost Airports (of WA) site.
An then there is the “developing” issue crisis of Obama’s reaction to the press:
The media glare, the constant security appendage and the sheer production that has become a morning jog or a hankering for an ice cream cone – it’s been closing in on Barack Obama for some time.
Now the president-elect appears increasingly conscious of the confines of his new position, bristling at the routine demands of press coverage and beginning to chafe at boundaries that are only going to get smaller.
Oh? Obama has a press problem??
Obama even took the unusual step Friday morning of leaving behind the pool of reporters assigned to follow him, taking his daughters to a nearby water park without them. It was a breach of longstanding protocol between presidents (or presidents-elect) and the media, that a gaggle of reporters representing television, print and wire services is with his motorcade at all times.
So…Obama, who isn’t the President yet, and is on vacation, successfully ditched the press. It sound to me like it might be the press that is a little put off by the experience.
Then when reporters finally caught up with Obama at Koko Marina Paradise Deli and he acknowledged them for one of few times since arriving in Hawaii last Saturday, he sounded resigned.
He was probably concerned that they would report on something trivial like, how long he scrubbed his hand after taking a piss.
After ordering a tuna melt on 12-grain bread…
[*sigh*]
Come to think of it, post-pissing hygene isn’t really all that trivial…is it?
…Obama approached reporters and placed his hand on the shoulder of pool reporter Philip Rucker of The Washington Post, who was scribbling away in his notebook.
Oh my God! That’s, like, assault. Obama must be cracking!
“You don’t really need to write all that down,” Obama said.
Spoken like a true madman. Of course they do! The press pool must get out important stories like, say the “Obama’s 12-grain bread fetish” so that the right-wing whack-jobs can frame Obama as a “Latte-sipping, arugula-eating, hard-left, 12-grain-librul”. And so Bible numerologists can use the information to divine just when Obama will trigger the rapture.
All presidents and would-be presidents struggle with “the bubble” – the security detail and the always-there reporters that impose barriers to any spontaneous interaction with the outside world.
But Obama seems to be struggling particularly hard, particularly early.
That…or a pissed-off press corps is just makin’ shit up!
The total number of improperly rejected absentee ballots in the Minnesota Senate election is (drum roll, please)…1,350.
Currently satirist Al Franken leads Sen. Norm Coleman by about 47 votes following the statewide recount. The addition of some 1,350 additional absentee ballots is expected to favor Franken.
The Coleman campaign now has a big decision to make. Will they cooperate to get the improperly rejected absentee ballots counted (as the state Supreme court requires them to do)? Or will they throw the whole process into chaos (at risk of court sanctions) by obstructing progress on those ballots?
In other words, will they go for the “win at any cost” strategy or will they adopt the “all legitimately cast ballots should be counted” strategy?
Political ethicists everywhere are sitting more upright in their chairs and taking deep drags from their pipes in sublime anticipation….
Headzup: Fred Thompson to replace Bill-O the Clown?
Barely Political: A political Christmas song.
How cool is Barack Obama?
Al Gore’s “clean coal” response (via ThinkProgress).
Olberman’s favorite people of the year:
Mark Fiore: A cartoonist’s Christmas wish list.
Obama’s Christmas message.
Christmas bailout.
Maddow: A beautiful act of civil disobediance.
Buh-bye Brit (via TalkingPointsMemo).
TPM’s sleaziest campaign ad nominees (via TalkingPointsMemo).
Pat Robertson grads Bush and Obama (via TalkingPointsMemo).
David Schuster grills Uber-Wingding Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) about his hoax of a report (via ThinkProgress).
Three quarters of Americans say “Go away, Bush”.
Charmer Cheney:
Headzup: Sarah on her daughter’s baby daddy’s momma’s arrest.
Maddow: Will Republicans block infrastructure improvements? (Via Crooks and Liars.)
Headzup: No-compromise Shrub.
Young Turks: Comparing liberal and conservative talk show hosts.
Ann Telnaes: Bailout bonuses.
The Sunday Funnies (via OneGoodMove).
Ebenezer Arnold: A California Carol.
Maddow: ball-out fiasco .
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Al Franken got a Christmas eve gift from the Minnesota Supreme Court. Yesterday the court rejected arguments by Sen. Norm Coleman that the they should prevent local and state canvassing boards from tallying votes that may have been counted twice:
“We are deeply disappointed,” said Coleman lawyer Fritz Knaak, declaring that the Supreme Court decision “virtually guarantees” that the election will be decided in a court contest and that Coleman’s campaign is prepared to wage one.
What this means is that Al Franken will most likely be certified the winner of the election. Coleman will then be in a very tough spot—asking the state courts overturn a certified election. The election contest will be very difficult for Coleman if only because there is little evidence to support the campaign’s claims that some duplicated ballots were counted twice in the recount.
Franken holds an unofficial 47 vote lead. By early 2009, the fate of some 1,500 improperly rejected absentee ballots will be determined by mutual consent of local elections officials and the candidates. The results are likely to strengthen Franken’s lead.
An earlier State Supreme Court ruling requires that local elections officials and the campaigns agree on which of the rejected absentee ballots were improperly rejected before those ballots can be opened and allocated. The Court threatened campaign lawyers [bottom of page 4] with sanctions during any subsequent court action if good-faith efforts are not maintained throughout the process.
This would seem to leave Coleman’s side in a quandary. If they are going to contest the election over the “duplicate” votes, they cannot be obstructionist in dealing with the rejected absentee ballots—and doing so will increase Franken’s lead. This ought to be entertaining.
Contact Seattle Dan or Tammy, (206) 324-7000, 2301 South Jackson Street suite 210, Seattle, WA 98144
