Campaign Diaries

We are only a few hours from a resolution in Georgia’s runoff (note: for once, I will not be able to liveblog tonight’s results), but we are no closer to knowing who the next Minnesota Senator will be.

Today, an unexpected development provided the Franken campaign a much-needed lifeline: A precinct in Democratic-leaning Ramsey County found 171 ballots that had not been counted in the initial tallying because of a machine malfunction. Election officials diligently went through these ballots, generating a significant net gain of 37 votes for the Democratic nominee. (Of these 171 ballots, Franken received 91 and Coleman received 54.)

Unfortunately, the volume of ballots that are being challenged still makes it impossible to get a sense of where the recount is heading. Monday’s recounting saw Coleman increase his lead from 282 to 340 votes - but it also saw Republican watchers once again challenge more ballots than their Democratic counterparts. As of last night, the Coleman camp had challenged 188 more ballots (up from 147 before the Thanksgiving break).

In other words, ballot challenges are making the fluctuation of Coleman’s lead based on recounted ballots meaningless. This is precisely why the 37 votes Franken netted in Ramsey are so significant: This gain is not dependent on the outcome of potentially frivolous challenges. It is not an artificial boost.

A second development could also have important repercussions in Franken’s favor. After the state Canvassing Board ruled last week that it did not have the authority to instruct counties to move towards counting absentee ballots that might have been improperly rejected, it looked like Franken was not going to be able to expand the universe of valid ballots.

Today, however, an e-mail from the Secretary of State office instructed all counties to sort all of their rejected absentee ballots in five piles, four of which would contain ballots that have been rejected for reasons provided by state law and the fifth with ballots that do “not meet one of these four reasons, or if the reason used to reject the absentee ballot is not based on factual information.” The Franken pile estimates that 1,000 ballots out of the 12,000 rejected absentee ballots might have been improperly invalidated.

This is not yet a victory for Democrats as there are no plans to count this fifth pile of ballots, which are still outside of the universe of valid ballots. (The recount only includes an overview of ballots that were deemed valid in the initial count.) But it ought to help Franken for two reasons. First, it will give Democrats an idea of how many ballots might have been improperly rejected - helping Franken’s camp argue its case in court.

Second, it will save Democrats precious time later in the process. If Coleman retains his lead after the canvassing board considers challenged ballots, Franken will face a tremendous amount of pressure to give up - and the 111th Congress’s January 3rd swear-in date will be looming. For counties to already have gone through the sorting process seems essential for Franken to complete any contest in due time.

Meanwhile, in OH-15, none of Franklin County’s tens of thousands provisional ballots have been counted. The dispute over 1,000 ballots is blocking the counting of the remaining 26,000 and is keeping the outcome of the Stivers-Kilroy race up in the air. Today, the Ohio Supreme Court received the arguments from both sides but provided no indication as to whether they would rule - leaving the entire process in a holding pattern.