Does anyone know whats up with these last 654 ballots in minnesota?

[yourguide]

I know the coleman campaign is pushing to get these excluded absentees counted, and pushing the minn supreme court to do so but can anyone tell me why they were rejected, twice?

Just curious as those are the last of the ballots and it's down to the supreme court now. The Minn supreme court requested info as to why the ballots were rejected and now I want to know as well.

[Skip Intro]

1. Submitted after a deadline?

:shrug:

[VeraAgnes]

3. These are ballots from "red districts"

which were identified as propperly discarded ballots. I sense a red district would not be harsh on the red candidate so I feel confident that they are not ballots in support of Coleman.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/with_more_absentee_ballots_cou.php


One other thing: The burden of proof in any legal arguments will be on Coleman, with the assumption going in that Franken's victory was legitimate. And even if he won both of the two issues above, he'd still be almost one hundred votes behind.

What options does he have left? Coleman's only hope would be to win on his campaign's latest efforts to restart this phase of the recount and force the counting of about 650 rejected absentee ballot envelopes from red precincts, which the local officials say were tossed properly. An affidavit from a Hennepin County election official shows the Coleman campaign hasn't even supplied reasons to look at these ballots, and election officials in multiple counties, including Ramsey county, Pipestone County and others all say they've been taking the time to review the Coleman list, and they stand by their decisions.

The Coleman campaign still seems likely to file an election contest, challenging this result in court. This would bottle up Franken's victory for weeks or even months, and delay Al Franken from being able to take his seat in the Senate. But at this point it's difficult to see how they could have much of a leg to stand on. It really does look like Al Franken's lead is insurmountable

[samdogmom]

2. Maybe they're missing the required signatures?

My state seems to be very similar to MN (in election laws, etc.). Absentee ballots HAVE to be rejected if the Municipal Clerk forgot to sign the ballot before it was even mailed to the voter! (Believe me, much to my dismay during a very close important recount we had to reject absentee ballots because the Municipal Clerk simply "forgot" to sign the ballot before it was mailed! GRRRR! Even though the voter went to great lengths to get their vote counted...it was never valid from the start! Can you believe this?)

And, Absentee Ballots have to be rejected if the voter returns the ballot without signing an affidavit on the envelope and getting the signature witnessed by another registered voter.

[Hokie]

4. These were ballots that were rejected for legal reasons

Absentee ballots have to satisfy these four conditions:

(1) the voter's name on the return envelope appears in substantially the same form as on the application records provided to the election judges by the county auditor:

(2) the voter has signed the federal oath prescribed pursuant to section 705(b)(2) of the Help America Vote Act, Public Law 107-252;

(3) the voter has set forth the same voter's passport number, or Minnesota driver's license or state identification card number, or the last four digits of the voter's Social Security number as submitted on the application, if the voter has one of these documents; and

(4) the voter has not already voted at that election, either in person or by absentee ballot.

The votes counted today were found to have met all four conditions but were rejected by mistake. The 650 that Coleman wants counted were "cherry picked" from Coleman leaning counties and had previously been found to have not met one of the four conditions. In addition, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that each campaign had veto power as well as the counties in determining what rejected absentee ballots were to be counted. Coleman now wants to change that rule and over rule the counties determination and count his cherry picked ballots. Coleman originally went to the MN SC to ask that none of the rejected absentee votes be counted. The ruling he got was the convoluted veto procedure. Franken offered to count all of the incorrectly rejected ballots as determined by the counties but Coleman declined the offer. Coleman's grounds for a challenge are very tenuous at this point.