Finally, the first phase of the Minnesota recount is over! All precincts have recounted all of their ballots, and it is now the canvassing board’s turn to convene and go through the 6,655 ballots challenged by both campaigns.
Excluding those challenged ballots - the vast majority of are expected to be included in the final tally - Coleman lead stands at 192 votes, meaning that Al Franken has at the moment netted 23 votes since the recount began. As expected, the challenged ballots will decide it all - and Coleman’s camp has voiced more objections than has Franken’s (3,375 to 3,280).
The canvassing board will not meet before December 16th, so we will have to wait more than 10 days for the process to even continue.
There is, however, one huge exception to the first phase being finalized. An exception so huge, in fact, that I can say without exaggerating that the recount is getting more complicated by the day: The saga of the 133 Minneapolis ballots that have gone missing entered its third day and things look very muddy.
Two days ago, when I first wrote about this topic, I was careful not to say that those ballots were missing, entertaining the very plausible possibility that the initial tally had overstated the number of votes (perhaps by double-counting some ballots or due to a type of typo that occurred in other precincts).
Now, however, election officials have admitted that these 133 votes are probably actual ballots that have disappeared. In fact, they have identified a missing envelope (they said it was labeled “envelope 1″). Based on these developments, the Secretary of State office allowed the precinct to keep its count open, meaning that this is the only precinct in the state not to have finalized its recount tally yet.
The options facing the county are just as confusing. If it finds the missing envelope, there will obviously be no problem, but what happens if the envelope is not found? Either the county uses the recounted tally - and that will result in Al Franken losing a net 46 votes - or the county uses the tally of the original count. As election officials told TPM, there is a precedent and legal grounding for the latter move, but it would be sure to be a highly controversial decision that the Coleman campaign would undoubtedly challenge in court if Coleman fell behind.
In other words, the first phase might be finished but there is a lot left to resolve in Minnesota before the Coleman-Franken race gets settled.
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In OH-15, meanwhile, we have been in holding pattern for the past month but we are now hours away from a resolution. The Ohio Supreme Court finally settled the dispute over 1,000 provisional ballots Republicans wanted thrown out because they lack an identifying mark on the external envelope; the Supreme Court ruled that they should not be counted - a major victory for the GOP’s effort to protect Steve Stivers’ lead.
This decision paved the way for Franklin County to count the 26,000 provisional ballots that had been held up (none of the provisional ballot can be counted in an Ohio county if there is a dispute on some of them). The count, which started today, is scheduled to be completed by Sunday so we should soon know the result.
Stivers holds a lead of 594 votes though all the votes have been counted from the district’s GOP counties. Kilroy is expected to handily win Franklin County’s provisional ballots and thus close the gaps, the question being whether she can close it enough to overcome Stivers’ edge.
That is why those 1,000 ballots were so important: They would have increased the universe of uncounted ballots Kilroy is be expected to win and given her a bigger chance of taking the lead.
As in the terribly sloppy Minnesota Senate situation, the House can (and hopefully) will have the last word on the qualifications of its members. The House majority could, if they chose, refuse to seat anyone until the rest of those votes are counted. And, if the Ohio vote counters refuse to count the votes, the House is entitled to seat either candidate and/or require a new election. That’s the same thing as could happen in the Senate with the even more sloppy and important Minnesota situation.
It is true that it is the Congress that ultimately determines which members to seat, but it would be very messy, as well as extremly partisan for the Democratic controlled Congress to refuse to seat a Republican based on ballots. It is more likely that Congress would just allow the candidate ahead (which is the Republican in OH-15 and MN-Senate) then have a vote on who would get in.
Taniel where are you getting your information on the races?
The GOP has had pretty good night, althought it doesn’t signify that they will return to power in 2010 or that Obama is suddenly weakening. The GOP hold in LA-04 is important, and it does show that the worst for the GOP seems to be over, at least in very conservative House districts. Democrats who won strong GOP districts (MD-01, ID-01, AL in 2008 will now be immense danger now, althrough most of the more balanced state on the Presidential level are probably more safe, as the GOP has yet to prove itself in districts that are either swing or Dem-leaning districts: with one notable exception tonight:
Cao’s win in LA-02 is rather incredible, considering that Jefferon won in the 2006 runnoff against a single Democrat, and that he won the runoff primary this year (altho against a white democrat, and he got under 25% of the vote in a crowded first round primary). Apparently turnout was very light, so alot of voters who would have voted for Jefferson probably didn’t show up to vote, considering how Democratic the district is, and those who did vote despised Jefferson greatly. Good to see that the people of LA-4 finally threw out thier corrupt congressman.
Before the GOP starts celebrating, it is important to note that Cao only won because he was in a low turnout election and that his opponet had immensive ethicial problems. No matter how much of a liberal Republican Cao becomes, and considering how the African American population has dropped thanks to Katrina, LA-4 is still the most democratic district in Louisiana and there is little chance that he can win reelection in 2010 against a Democrat with no ethnical problems. Obama probably won LA-4 by at least 80% and even through he wont’ be on the ballot, he will surely campaign for the Democrat. While we are used to seeing Democrats win in heavy GOP districts, at least until the mid-terms, we see a Republican in an heavily Republican district in a long time.