Atlantis Online
March 28, 2024, 01:18:50 pm
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: FARMING FROM 6,000 YEARS AGO
http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=156622&command=displayContent&sourceNode=156618&contentPK=18789712&folderPk=87030
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

FRANKEN VICTORY PROJECTED

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: FRANKEN VICTORY PROJECTED  (Read 41 times)
0 Members and 47 Guests are viewing this topic.
Danielle Marshall
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 3121



« on: December 19, 2008, 04:07:00 am »

FRANKEN VICTORY PROJECTED

As Contested Ballots Go His Way, Franken Should Vault Past Norm Coleman To Projected Lead Of 89 Votes



Democratic challenger Al Franken finds himself on the cusp of winning a seat in the United States Senate after Minnesota's canvassing board awarded him a host of challenged votes during deliberations on Thursday.

As of 8PM ET, the Minneapolis Star Tribune projected that Franken would finish the recount process with a lead of 89 votes, positioning him to become the 59th senator caucusing with Democrats in the upcoming Congress.

According to local paper tallies, Franken currently trails Sen. Norm Coleman by a mere five votes, down from the 358-vote margin that the Republican held just last night. The Associated Press has the count even closer, with Coleman ahead by two votes. An aide to Franken told the Huffington Post that, according to the campaign's internal count, Franken has already taken a small lead.

The gains came as the canvassing board sifted through hundreds of ballots that Coleman had contested during the recount process. On Friday, the canvassing board will consider another 400 or so Coleman challenges. If the pattern remains consistent, Franken should vault past his opponent to a projected lead of approximately 89 votes, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The process by which the Senate race has come to this stage is often confusing. Coleman held an approximately 200-vote lead after the state went through a hand recount of all ballots. However, there remained approximately 1,500 ballots that one or the other campaign contested (and temporarily removed from the overall vote tally). Coleman challenged about 1,000 of these, Franken the rest.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the canvassing board considered Franken's challenges, which gave a slight gain to Coleman's lead (Franken, after all, was challenging ballots that were, perhaps erroneously, awarded to Coleman during the recount). But the Franken campaign also gained some votes during the two days; the canvassing board awarded him dozens of ballots that had been wrongfully determined to be non-votes or under-votes.

By Thursday, the canvassing board had moved onto the pile of Coleman challenges, and with it, Coleman's lead quickly dissipated. It became clear early on that the Senator had challenged many ballots simply because they favored Franken and had a minor (non-disqualifying) clerical error. The board began plowing through the votes until, by late afternoon, Franken found himself down by only five.

As it stands now, it seems likely that Franken will end this process with a lead wider than even his campaign expected. Earlier projections, from the Associated Press, Star Tribune and Franken himself, suggested that Coleman would lose the race by roughly 20 votes or less. And this tally doesn't even take into consideration the legal and political battle being waged over wrongfully rejected absentee ballots, which the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled, on Thursday, should be counted.

That decision, another loss for the Coleman campaign, could mean even more votes flowing into Franken's tally, though the Court also stressed that the state and both campaigns come up with a uniform standard for identifying these absentee ballots before they are counted.
Report Spam   Logged

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Kristina
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 4558



« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2008, 10:26:18 pm »


Franken Passes Coleman In Recount
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports:

The intense scrutiny of "voter intent" resumed this morning by a five-member board charged with directing Minnesota's recount in the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and Democratic rival Al Franken, and the first rush of ballot rulings has unofficially put the challenger in the lead.

On Thursday, the State Canvassing Board reviewed Coleman's challenges of hundreds of Election Day ballots, and the day's work saw the unofficial margin between the candidates dwindle to within a handful of votes.

As the board, headed by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, took up and rejected more Coleman challenges today, Franken pulled ahead in the opening minutes.

...

Franken's move to the lead was no real surprise, given that the vast majority of ballot challenges typically fail. On the previous two days, when the board examined challenges from Franken, most were rejected and Coleman gained.


On Thursday, the AP gave Norm Coleman a mere two-vote lead. Projections suggest Franken will win, but the race will most likely not be decided until next year. CNN reports that Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) is "quietly prepping for the possibility of a temporary Senate appointment, given the increasing likelihood the nation's lone unresolved Senate contest might not officially come to a close before Congress convenes again next month."

Report Spam   Logged

"Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances."

Thomas Jefferson
Deanna Witmer
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 4985



« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2009, 01:22:08 am »

Franken Increases Lead Over Coleman As Minnesota Recount Nears Finish Line


ST. PAUL, Minn. — Victory in Minnesota's drawn-out Senate race moved within Democrat Al Franken's grasp Saturday when he increased his lead over Republican Norm Coleman as the statewide recount drew to a close.

The state Canvassing Board will reconvene Monday to declare which candidate received the most overall votes in the election. Barring court intervention, it will be Franken.

Franken's lead now stands at 225 votes after gaining 176 votes more than Coleman in Saturday's review of the formerly sealed absentee ballots. Franken started the day with a 49-vote advantage.

The 933 absentee ballots were among those rejected by poll workers but later found to be excluded in error. The campaigns eventually agreed they should be added to the recount.

Unless Coleman wins a pending court petition that seeks to add hundreds more ballots to the recount, the counting is done and the Canvassing Board can sign off on the result on Monday or Tuesday. The result cannot be certified for at least one more week under state law.

"We are confident since there are no ballots left to count the final margin will stand with Al Franken having won the election by 225 votes," said Franken attorney Marc Elias.

The new total came on the day Coleman's term as senator officially expired.

Senate Republican leaders have said the chamber shouldn't seat Franken until all legal matters are settled, even if that drags on for months.


Coleman's campaign has a pending request before the high court to include an additional 650 ballots that it said were improperly rejected but not forwarded by local officials to St. Paul for counting. The state Supreme Court has not said when it would rule in that case.

The Canvassing Board's declaration of the winner of the recount opens a seven-day window for the losing candidate to challenge the result in court. Such a lawsuit could take months to resolve and leave Minnesota with only one senator for the time being.

Coleman hasn't ruled out filing a lawsuit challenging the election result, claiming irregulaties gave Franken an unfair advantage. Coleman's lead lawyer, Fritz Knaak, said the campaign was almost certain to sue.

"Ultimately I believe it's going to be the senator's decision based on our recommendation," Knaak said. "At this point, my recommendation would be to move forward."

Franken's campaign has refused to outline its potential next steps.

Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said he doubted a lawsuit will get filed despite the tough talk.

"This is so accurate and has been done so carefully that the person with the least votes is going to say, 'I'm disappointed, I'm sad, but I came in short this time,'" he said.
Report Spam   Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy