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MN Senate race over?

fff

Well-known member
Franken thinks so.

Franken expects to defeat Coleman by 35-50 votes

Al Franken’s campaign is as close to declaring victory as it has throughout the weeks-long recount in the Minnesota Senate race.

Franken’s campaign attorney Marc Elias said he expects Franken to be leading Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) by “between 35 and 50 votes” when the Canvassing Board finishes counting all the disputed ballots on Tuesday.

“On Tuesday, I will stand before you with that work completed. Al Franken will have a lead of between 35 and 50 votes. And, at some point not too long after that, Al Franken will stand before you as the senator-elect from Minnesota,” Elias said at a press conference Saturday.

The state’s Canvassing Board is expected to finish counting all the disputed ballots in the Senate race on Tuesday, adding the thousands of challenges that were withdrawn by both campaigns to the tally. Currently Franken leads by 251 votes, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s unofficial count.

Election officials still have to sort and count approximately 1,600 absentee ballots that were mistakenly rejected before the vote is certified. Franken’s campaign expects to gain additional votes from that pile; indeed, the Coleman campaign filed a lawsuit attempting to prevent those votes from being included.

And the Coleman campaign has also filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court to prevent the state Canvassing Board from certifying its count until it decides how to handle duplicate ballots. Coleman’s campaign is alleging that as many as 150 ballots were accidentally counted twice during the recount process.

UPDATE: Coleman campaign spokesman Mark Drake issued the following response: "This is just more bluster and hot air from a campaign that has been trailing for two years. While we can understand their need to latch onto their temporary lead, the reality is there's a long way to go in this process. We have no doubt that once this recount is fully completed, Senator Coleman will be in the lead and will be reelected to the Senate."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/scorecard/1208/Franken_expects_to_defeat_Coleman_by_3550_votes.html

But even if Coleman wins, there's that FBI thingie. :lol:
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Does not look good for Coleman....

Lawsuit All but Assured in Minnesota

Top lawyers for Norm Coleman's campaign have said that a lawsuit is virtually certain in the Minnesota Senate election. Reading between the lines, this suggests that they have de facto conceded defeat in the actual vote counting. If you were expecting to get more votes than the other guy, why would you even talk about filing a suit? There has been nary a word about lawsuits from the Franken camp, just a prediction that Franken will win by 35-50 votes. Coleman will have an uphill struggle because the Minnesota supreme court has denied every motion he has brought before it so far. It is clear the court does not want to settle the election. It wants the canvassing board to do so and it seems unlikely it will overturn the canvassing board's decision unless Coleman can show the board violated state law. In any event, no suit will be filed until the 1600 absentee ballots in dispute have been counted and that won't happen until January 5. So Minnesota will start the new session of Congress with one senator. There should have been some provision in the constitution that when a senate seat is vacant, the other senator gets two votes so the state is not disadvantaged, but there isn't.
 

fff

Well-known member
Yep, Coleman has lost all his challenges at this point. Most observers seem to think he's done. So it looks like we're at 59 Democratic Senators.....for what that's worth. :lol:
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Minnesota Recount Complete: Franken Ahead by 225 Votes

The Minnesota canvassing board finished counting all 900 rejected absentee ballots that the parties agreed on yesterday and the unofficial count puts Al Franken ahead by 225 votes. Franken won 52% of the newly counted absentee ballots to Coleman's 33%, with the rest going to independent Dean Barkley or there was no vote for senator. There is nothing left to count now.

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) has not conceded. Instead, he has filed suit with the Minnesota Supreme Court asking for more absentee ballots from other counties to be counted. If he loses this case, he has promised to file another suit. It is not clear if he really thinks he can win or he is merely stalling to reduce Democratic strength in the new Senate for the first month or so.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
reader (the Second) said:
It's amazing how long this can drag out.

I don't think its going to drag out much longer...The Minnesota Courts have pretty well said, several times over now, that they are not going to pick the winner- and its up to the state election officials to do their job- certify someone and get on with it......

I really don't care for Franken- and kind of liked the way Coleman tore into Bush's farcical excuse of a USDA and an FDA in a couple of the hearings-- but it appears Coleman is just another victim of the Bush reign of incompetence that has pretty well neutered the Republican party...
 
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