Campaign Diaries

Seven congressional race are still unresolved. Two have been thrown into December runoffs (GA-Sen and LA-04), while three others are awaiting the counting of tens of thousands of ballots (AK-Sen, CA-04 and OH-15).

That leaves Minnesota’s Senate race and VA-05, where there are no more reservoir of uncounted votes. counties have finalized their canvassing, vote totals haven’t changed for days and all absentee and provisional votes have been accounted for. Norm Coleman and Tom Perriello lead by 206 and 745 votes, and Al Franken and Virgil Goode’s hopes of staging a comeback now rest on recounts.

This leaves Rep. Goode in a hole, as a 745 vote deficit is very difficult to overcome at the district-level, as it amounts to a lead of 0.24% for the Democratic challenger. Taking a page out of Coleman’s playbook, Perriello has been trying to pressure Goode into dropping recount efforts - and this WSLS story implies that the incumbent might be thinking about that. If Goode gives up, we could have a resolution to this race when the results are certified on November 24th; otherwise, we will have to wait until mid-December, as no recount can start until December 5th (see my calendar of upcoming events).

The situation is far more interesting in Minnesota, where Coleman’s 206 vote lead amounts to a 0.01% advantage, a slight edge for the incumbent Senator but one that could easily be erased in a recount in which thousands of spoiled ballots could find their way into the total. And we are in this for the long haul: While the recount will start after the November 19th certification, challenged ballots (those that are the most likely to not have been counted yet and thus to alter the margin) will not be considered before December 15th - more than a month from now!

Even then, it is likely that the election would go into judicial overtime and issues that the campaigns might go to court over keep piling up. For instance, the Franken campaign is insisting that Hennepin County review 461 absentee ballots that Democrats say were improperly rejected; election officials said yesterday that this would be unlikely to be addressed during a recount, meaning that the only way Franken could force the country to reconsider these rejections would be to drag them to court.

Meanwhile, Republicans are doing their best to question the integrity of the recount process in order to pressure election officials - starting with Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie - to issue rulings in their favor. They have blasted Ritchie’s impartiality and pointed to the late discovery of 32 uncounted ballots in a heavily Democratic county as proof that the canvassing process has been fishy. However, it is common for Democratic candidates to gain hundreds of votes during the canvassing of uncontested races, and Franken’s gains are comparable to those of candidates like Amy Klobuchar in 2006.

As a result of Coleman’s protests, however, Richie has been careful to not look partisan and not give the GOP fodder for complaints. Yesterday, Richie appointed the four people who will seat with him on the canvassing board that will take a look at the challenged ballots starting on December 15th. Two of them are appointees of Repulican Gov. Tim Palwenty, while one is an independent appointed by Gov. Jesse Ventura.

Unless Georgia’s December 2nd runoff election goes into counting overtime, it looks likely that Minnesota’s Senate race will be the 2008 contest that will be decided last.