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Glut of ballot challenges chokes recount
Unless Minnesota's U.S. Senate campaigns aggressively withdraw some of the ballots they've challenged during the 3-week-old recount, it could take more than a month for a state board to judge them. As of Wednesday, 6,326 ballots were taken off the piles of recounted votes after observers for Democrat Al Franken or Republican Sen. Norm Coleman questioned the voters' intent or the validity of the votes. A State Canvassing Board, made up of two county and two Supreme Court judges and the secretary of state, will determine how those ballots should be counted later this month. The Franken campaign Wednesday made a move to reduce the size of that challenged stack. It told the secretary of state's office that the campaign wanted to withdraw 633 of its more than 3,000 ballot challenges. All counties are expected to finish sifting through ballots by Friday. As of Wednesday night, when about 98 percent of ballots were counted, Coleman led Franken by 316 votes, when comparing the Election Day totals to the recounted totals. That vote lead doesn't include any of the challenged ballots. After "painstaking" examination of some of the challenged ballots, folks at Franken headquarters decided voter intent was clear, and the 633 ballots were valid. The campaign likely will remove more ballots from those the canvassing board will have to plow through. "This is as far as we have gotten in this process," said Franken recount attorney Marc Elias. Both campaigns have claimed since the recount started Nov. 19 that their opponents were challenging ballots in order to inflate the vote counts. Elias claimed Wednesday that if the challenges were counted as they eventually will be, Franken would actually be leading by 22 votes in the race. Last week, Coleman recount attorney Fritz Knaak asked the Franken campaign for a détente in the "game of ballot challenge one-upmanship" but hasn't yet withdrawn any challenges levied by the Coleman campaign. Posted by: Fred 2008-12-05 |
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