News and Politics | January 05, 2009 | 25 comments

Franken to be declared Senate victor in Minnesota

source: http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSTRE50405S20090105

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Democrat Al Franken will be declared the winner of the tight U.S. Senate contest in Minnesota, emerging from a ballot recount with a slim margin over Republican Norm Coleman, state officials said on Sunday.

But Coleman, the incumbent, has asked Minnesota's supreme court to require that a few hundred additional absentee ballots be included in the recount -- and he could then ask the court to investigate the contest all over again.

"At the moment, Franken has a 225-vote lead," after the weekend counting of what were deemed the last uncounted absentee ballots, said Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a Democrat who oversaw the process.

Ritchie said unless the supreme court acts on Coleman's request and orders more ballots to be counted, he will reconvene the state's Canvassing Board on Monday to certify Franken as the winner of the November 4 contest.

Even so, Coleman's campaign said it will likely challenge the result, which would require the state supreme court's chief justice to appoint three judges to investigate its claims.

Hundreds of absentee voters were "disenfranchised," other votes were double-counted, and still other ballots that went missing were counted anyway, Coleman's campaign manager Cullen Sheehan said in a statement.

"We remain convinced that this process is broken, and as a result, the numbers being reported will not be accurate or valid ... (It) clearly means that a contest is the only likely remedy to ensure a fair outcome," Sheehan said.

SATIRIST

Franken, 57, is a well-known satirist who wrote for and starred on NBC television's long-running comedy show "Saturday Night Live," and more recently hosted a liberal radio show before running for the Senate from his home state.

Coleman, 59, just completed his first term that he won by defeating Walter Mondale, the former Democratic presidential candidate who stood in for Sen. Paul Wellstone. Wellstone died in a plane crash during his 2002 reelection campaign.

The recount of some 2.4 million votes cast for the pair has swung back and forth over several weeks. Coleman initially held the edge, but his narrow victory margin necessitated the recount under state law.

The Canvassing Board sifted through hundreds of ballots contested by the two campaigns.

"The recount has been done so precisely, and so transparently," it would be difficult to envision a challenge succeeding, Ritchie said.

Senate Republicans have pledged not to seat Franken provisionally while the race is still in doubt. Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York urged that Franken be seated, which would expand the party's majority to 58 of the 100 members.

But Republican Sen. John Cronyn of Texas issued a sharply worded statement saying "Sen. Schumer's exultations are premature to say the least."

(more at the link)
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25 comments // Franken to be declared Senate victor in Minnesota

  • airjazzman1
  • Gargaryun
    • 0
      Gargaryun  

    • Was Al ever Funny? someone asks....Having seen Him perform Live, at Washburn University (Topeka, Kansas) in the early 1980s(with Tom Davis, His partner in crime, LOL) I will state He can Be HILARIOUS, when He's not scaring the HELL out of You with His concise, biting, honest, satirical view of the foibles of the corrupt powers that be, Who have consistently been the target of His wit for the last 30+ years!
      Along these lines, I firmly support a movement for President Obama to appoint similar public pundits to positions of advisorship...Particularly Bill Maher & Montel Williams !!!

    • 3 years ago
  • unimatrix0
  • derk
  • mariposablanca
  • jdimino
    • 0
      jdimino  

    • Good for you, Al. It's about time a smart, qualified individual with a sense of progressive politics and humor gets the chance to put his money where his mouth is. For years, I listened to Franken on Air America and he was adamant about politics and to hear he's sitting in a seat he analyzed so closely is very cool ..

    • 3 years ago
  • damnneargenius
  • guidedtotarget
  • ermullins
  • asherp
  • mariposablanca
    • 0
      mariposablanca  

    • Before you judge MN's choice, you should really understand the other candidates.

      Barkley was lobbyist for a tobacco company and part of the infamous Jesse Ventura cabinet, Coleman was a DFLer before he became a Republican and in recent years has supported Bush through thick and thin and finally Franken has been a loud mouth commentator and has made insensitive comments but has always stuck to his guns, as far as representing policy that stands for the working class citizen.

      Yes, way to go MN, considering the choices.

    • 3 years ago
  • Kylsport
    • 0
      Kylsport  

    • Was Franken ever funny? The only thing funny was this whole process and his seat in the Senate.

      But if this is what the people elect, let it be of no surprise our country is at the state it is in, with corrupt politicians, hyperinflated dollar, and moral decay. I am loving it and I am glad that we are reaping the fruits of our labor. Way to go America!

    • 3 years ago
  • fauxsherrrr
  • unimatrix0
  • fauxsherrrr
  • freeus
    • 0
      freeus  

    • He's got all the republicans badmouthing him, therefore, Al Franken has got to be a good person and will make a good Senator as well. ( :

      I've never understood why republicans don't like good people. They only flock like sheep around evil people (e.g. Bush, Cheney, McCain, Palin). They stand by their party line till death do they part.

      Oh and btw... rigging votes is unAmerican in case you didn't know it. If these last elections feel a little strange to you cause they didn't turn out the way Fox Noise told you they would, it's cause the planned 'rigging' of the elections fell short. And how coincidental that the guy who ran that underground operation has since died in a plane crash.

    • 3 years ago
  • fauxsherrrr
  • Eleganza
    • 0
      Eleganza  
    • freeus:

      I cannot help seeing the irony of this entire fiasco, here is the Republican party using our vaunted military might to try and force a form of government down the throats of middle eastern countries that they themselves don't adhere to. From,Nixon's attempt to steal an election with break ins of the Dem's offices, use of the IRS to target "enemies" Regans' shameful arrangements with Iran and the central American death squads, Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay, conspiring to create a permanent Republican majority to the disgraceful theft of the 2000 presidential election. If it were any other country in world where an election is decided by the state where one candidates own brother ran that state and the judges from that candidates party stopped the counting of the votes once their candidate had the lead....we would call B.S. on that election...we wouldn't recognize it as legitimate...yet here they are yet again trying like Hell to force another fraud on the American people. I wonder if Dwight D. Eisenhower would even recognize his party these days...from men of education and principle to these,deceitful, racist, knuckle draggers that have taken the honorable reputation of America that took over 200 years to develop, a country that did not torture, that didn't initiate wars, that held open and transparent elections...in eight short years to the cesspool we find ourselves in now. Our once unrivaled economy in the toilet, our military... spent, our infrastructure in shambles..and even our allies distancing themselves from us.....let's give the credit to Nixon, Reagan, Bush/Cheney et al....no external enemy from without could have laid us as low as you have from within.

    • 3 years ago
  • unimatrix0
  • msmith7894
    • 0
      msmith7894  

    • Just what we need ... another celebrity elected to major office .... and this one happens to be divisive and dispised by many .... way to go Minnesota.

    • 3 years ago
  • kennymotown
    • 0
      kennymotown  

    • And Coleman was 10 times worse, at least Al is funnier
      and cares about the people and the troops. 3 USO tours to Afghanistan and Iraq. Norm is nothing but a Carl Rove appointee.

    • 3 years ago
  • akamaial
  • mojojuju
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