The latest is that Al Franken has been
declared the winner by 225 votes, but he will not be able to
receive an actual certificate of election until all legal
challenges are resolved. The main remaining issues concern the
Coleman campaign's contention that hundreds of rejected absentee
ballots from Coleman-friendly areas should have been counted just
as the ballots from Franken-friendly areas were, and the dispute
over whether some ballots were double-counted.
Coleman recount attorney Tony Trimble released a statement on the
matter, and here's an excerpt:
The actions today by the Canvassing Board are but the first
step in what, unfortunately, will now have to be a longer
process. This process isn't at the end; it is now just at the
beginning. We will contest the results of the Canvassing Board
-- otherwise, literally millions of Minnesotans will be
disenfranchised.
While we appreciate the effort of this board to do the work,
the reality is that any certification of vote totals at this
point is only preliminary. As this Canvassing Board has
recognized, there still exist serious problems with
inconsistencies in the administrative recount, and therefore in
the validity and reliability of the numbers certified today.
There can be no count that is accurate or valid when 654
potentially valid absentee votes remain disenfranchised and
when some votes are counted twice - leading to a violation of
one of the most sacred principles of our constitution - "One
person, One vote."
And, there can be no justification to report out a total when
133 votes were included in a count where there are not ballots
to support them. Or when a batch of votes were not counted on
Election Night, but were miraculously "found" during the
recount and included.
If the Canvassing Board had resolved all these issues, then the
process might be completed. But the Board has deferred the
resolution of those issues for the contest phase provided for
in Minnesota law. Since the process is far from complete, there
can be no confidence in the current results of the United
States Senate Recount, and we will file a contest within the
next 24 hours to promptly correct those problems and
inaccuracies. The Supreme Court ruling today also emphasizes
that that's what we must do to provide an accurate count for
this election.
Roll Call is reporting that
Harry Reid will try to seat Franken without a certificate of
election, even though he has cited a lack of a certificate of
election in Illinois as the reason why he won't seat Roland
Burris.
