Tuesday, December 23, 2008

TPM: The Neverending Story...

Election 2008!, still, because we just can't get enough...

Yes, the Minnesota recount is going on...and on...and on...and on...

Currently, Democratic-Farm-Labor candidate Al Franken holds a massive 48 vote lead (and in this particular election, 48 votes is massive)...

...but stormin' Normie is up to old (as in Florida 2000 old) tricks.

Courtesy of Talking Point Memo's Eric Kleefield:

Coleman's lawyer Tony Trimble said the campaign wanted to re-argue 16 decisions on disputed ballots that the board had ruled on last week, plus they alleged that 34 ballots for which the challenges had been withdrawn were then wrongly allocated, giving an illegitimate boost to Franken. Note that 16 plus 34 equals 50 -- so if they were to somehow sweep this whole set of arguments, they would just manage to undo Franken's current 48-vote edge.

Well, the decision came in, and:

And it didn't work. The board just looked at all 16 ballots, and in all 16 cases declined to take any further action like the Coleman camp wanted. So don't expect the Franken camp to fire back, as lead attorney Marc Elias indicated they didn't want to do so but were prepared to compete. Just to make sure, Dem Sec. of State Mark Ritchie said on the board's behalf that they're not interested in this coming up again.

So, it's these 16 Votes...

...plus the 130 or so "duplicate" ballots Norm said were cast (though his proof of this is debatable)

...and the 1500-1600 inappropriately invalidated Absentee Ballots that were tossed out on Election day.

Maybe we'll have this resolved by the time Al needs to run for re-election in 2014.

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