Finale to Minnesota’s U.S. Senate recount best summarized by Iron Range paper

Marshall Helmberger of the Ely, Orr and Tower Timberjay is one of those independent small town newspaper publishers who still puts up a fight against all odds. Today, he offers (my opinion) the best view of the conclusion to Minnesota’s U.S. Senate recount.

We’ve had a fair and transparent recount. All eligible votes have been counted. It now appears that Al Franken has won the election, defeating Sen. Norm Coleman by about 226 votes according to the Star Tribune. The only thing keeping the winner of the election from taking office is the expected ongoing legal battle by the defeated candidate. The fact that Coleman and his supporters would be disappointed by this outcome is expected and reasonable. But given the 100 percent transparent recount process administered by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie it’s hard to argue with the outcome with any credibility.

As Helmberger writes in this weekend’s Timberjay editorial:

… the guy (Coleman) who wanted to spare the people of Minnesota the trouble and expense of a recount now appears poised to deny us full representation in the U.S. Senate, possibly for months, and add far more expense to the state’s bill for the whole affair.

Pathetic, Norm. Just pathetic.

I’m an Al Franken fan, but realize that his mandate is thin. The fact that an incumbent thinks he deserves re-election at 42 percent is another more disturbing matter.

Comments

  1. I don’t know what to think. On one hand, the recount was transparent, but on the other hand, it can’t possibly be fair when 12,000 absentee ballots aren’t counted and the winner only wins by 225.

  2. It might not seem “right” but it is “fair”… if and only if the rejected ballots were rejected for valid reasons, and if those reasons were made very clear to the voters.

    Fairness needs to be judged regardless of what the vote total is (and, of course, regardless of who is in the lead!). If a ballot doesn’t “play by the rules”, it should be rejected regardless of if the election is a landslide or a squeaker.

    Now, granted, the focus on the rejected ballots highlights that we have work to do to help ensure that in the future, absentee ballots have fewer rejections. That might mean better education or simpler rules on the ballots.

  3. What about the people that voted twice?

    This tainted election proves the system is broken.

    We should have a run-off instead of a re-count. Follow the directions or your ballot will be rejected regardless of “voter intent”.

  4. I covered that “voting twice” nonsense in another thread.

    What you’re suggesting is that the NFL should change its rules so that interceptions are worth 10 points and retroactively give the Vikings the win.

    You don’t change state law during a recount. Minnesota has no provisions for a runoff. Runoffs are expensive (see Georgia, Louisiana). We could always try instant runoff … but not now. The election is done. State law was followed in the light of day.

  5. You covered NOTHING. Just because you said it does not make it so, Brown.

    The math and statistics of this election are setting a new precidence for corruption and voter fraud.
    The system is broken and we are the joke. Aspiring to be just like the crooked Chicago machine is wrong. You know you are wrong and in your heart you know I am right.

    BTW, any relation to Perry?

  6. I don’t have any Perrys in my string of Browns, but the tree does reach wide.

    Every time we talk about a post, we get to an impasse, you make a grand declarative, I make a grand declarative (usually as a joke) and you tell me in your heart I know you are right. Well, in my heart, I don’t think you’re right on this. We disagree. And I don’t think Minnesota bears any resemblance to Chicago, Florida or the like. I am proud of how the state handled this recount. I just don’t see any evidence of wrongdoing like you do. Should those 13,000 PROPERLY rejected absentees concern us? Yes and we need to do better so that voters aren’t disenfranchised for minor errors. But the law was followed and here we are. There’s no pretty way to end a statewide election that was decided by 200 some votes.

  7. More than 25 precincts now have more ballots than voters who signed in to vote.

    State Supreme Court Justice G. Barry Anderson, has acknowledged that “very likely there was a double counting.”

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