Campaign Diaries

Watchers of Minnesota’s Senate race had been waiting for this day for months. For the first time since the beginning of January, the margin between Al Franken and Norm Coleman was set to change as new ballots were going to be counted!

The court had set aside 387 rejected absentee ballots for possible inclusion in a final tally. Today, after a thorough review, it determined that 351 of these were eligible and immediately proceeded to count them in open court. Franken netted more votes: Of the 351 absentee ballots which were added to the tally, Franken received 198, Coleman 111 - a difference of 87 votes. 42 went in the “other” pile.

You might have spent the past few months getting accustomed to a margin of 225 votes, but Franken’s new lead is : 312 votes - almost a landslide!

While it was virtually impossible for Coleman to overtake Franken today (he would have needed to win about 82% of these absentee ballots - an unlikely proposition), today’s procedures were more than symbolic. The 3-judge panel still has to rule on two outstanding issues that could yield Coleman votes: the missing envelope of Minneapolis ballots and the dispute over potentially duplicated ballots. If the court had sided with the Republican on both of these issues, Coleman could have picked up as many as 140 votes.

In other words: Had Coleman netted 87 votes today instead of Franken, he would have been pulled close enough to overtake the Democrat’s lead if the court sided with him on the remaining issues. Now, Franken is certain to be the victor once the three judges issue their final ruling in the coming days, perhaps by the end of the week.

Of course, this does not mean that he should prepare himself to be seated in the Senate. Today, the Coleman campaign left no doubt that it would file an appeal. “Today was good in the sense that 351 voters got their ballots counted, but we are saddened and disappointed that it was only 351. It should have been 10 times more than that,” said a Coleman spokesperson. “Because those voters remain disenfranchised… we will be appealing this to the Minnesota Supreme Court.”

Governor Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, has made it clear that he will not sign an election certificate before the state Supreme Court issues a ruling. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a Democrat, has agreed that Franken should not be seated before the state appeals process is exhausted. The real question is what happens if Coleman files an appeal in federal court (will Pawlenty not sign a certificate? how strongly will Democrats push for Franken to be seated), but we have many months to ponder these questions.

Meanwhile, in New York…

Election officials in NY-20 are preparing themselves for the big day: They will start counting absentee ballots tomorrow, since today was the deadline for counties to receive domestic absentee ballots. As I documented yesterday, counties where Scott Murphy performed well are dramatically over-represented in the pool of absentee ballots. That suggests a slight edge for the Democrat going forward, but Tedisco can take comfort in the fact that many absentee ballots might have been cast before Murphy’s last-minute campaign push allowed him to pull into a tie with Tedisco.

As of tonight, the Republican is back on top in the official count… by only 18 votes! Last night’s count had Murphy up by 83 votes. What changed: Counties continued recanvassing procedures, Essex County conducted its check-ups and Saratoga County discovered a small glitch in their prior totals. All of these changes are routine and they happen in every election; but they are so minor that they do not matter… unless two candidates are separated by only a handful of votes.