Franken camp claims margin at 50; new ballots found

Minnesota Democrat Al Franken’s lead attorney
said Tuesday that his count shows the comedian trailing Sen. Norm Coleman by
just 50 votes with more than 200,000 left to be counted.

Attorney Marc Elias held his press conference in
Washington just hours after elections officials found nearly 200 ballots that
had not been counted on election night.

{mosads}So far, the Franken campaign claims to have
picked up 165 votes in the hotly contested recount. That number,
Elias said, includes all ballots challenged by both campaigns, assuming any
calls made by neutral election judges on the scene are accurate. Coleman’s
campaign has challenged approximately 300 more ballots than Franken’s, leaving
those votes off the official tally posted on the Minnesota Secretary of State’s
website, which shows Coleman leading by 340 votes.

The two campaigns have challenged a total of
5,952 ballots.

“I’m here to tell you that the vast majority of
these challenges are going to be thrown out,” Elias said. “We’re confident that
we’re going to gain votes when the challenges are resolved.”

He told reporters that more than 9,000 absentee
ballots have been rejected, at least some of them improperly. The Secretary of
State’s office, which has estimated that about 12,000 absentee ballots have
been rejected, has ordered counties to report the number of such ballots and
the reason for rejection. 

Minnesota law says absentee ballots can only be
rejected based on name and address discrepancies, if the voter’s signature is
not valid, if the voter is not registered to vote or if the voter already cast
a ballot, either in person or by absentee ballot. 

Elias said the Secretary of State’s office
estimates that at least 500 ballots were rejected without cause, though the
Franken campaign thinks the number is closer to 1,000. Franken’s campaign
intends to question the cause of those ballots’ rejection, citing some
elections officials who have admitted the ballots were mistakenly set aside.

“There are many, many Minnesotans who cast
lawful absentee ballots who, due to no fault of their own, had those ballots
rejected,” Elias said.

The uncertainty of the recount was evident again
Tuesday as Ramsey County elections officials found an additional 171 ballots
that hadn’t been counted on election night. A broken voting machine had been
replaced, but those who used the first machine never had their ballots
recounted. Elias said the missing ballots were an example of why the recount
needed to continue, though he refused to comment further.

The new discoveries are likely to shrink
Coleman’s slim lead. Ramsey County, centered in St. Paul, gave Franken a 52
percent-to-34 percent margin, with Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley
pulling 13 percent of the vote. The ballots were found in Maplewood’s Precinct 6, which
favored Franken over Coleman, 45 percent to 39 percent on Election Day.

The recount will continue through the end of the
week, to be followed by hearings starting Dec. 16, at which the state
Canvassing Board will review challenged ballots. Further steps, including
getting the Senate as a whole involved, are possible, according to Elias, who
refused to rule out any step.

The attorney voiced optimism about Franken’s
chances. 
“I have no doubt in my mind that Al Franken got more votes in this
election than Norm Coleman,” he said. “I don’t know what that margin’s going to
be. But the direction is all in one place, and we believe that’s going to
continue.”