Elections Board: Al Franken Leads Minnesota Senate Race. Final Results Due Saturday. Updated with an Apology

Senator Coleman may have lots of time to whiten his teeth when the Minnesota recount is finally done.

It would be a fitting goodbye to the man for whom the Repbulican party trashed the memory of Paul Wellstone (a close friend of current Democratic candidate for the seat, Al Franken) and the reputation of former Vice President Walter Mondale.
Senator Coleman also faces an FEC investigation relating to $75k one of his campaign donors paid to his wife's employer.

*Update (an apology and Saturday's results after counting of approved formerly challenged ballots) is at the bottom of the body of the post. Click on asterisk to got directly there.  If you haven't read this post before, I recommend reading it through so you'll understand what the apology is about.

Improperly rejected absentee ballots were re-examined and allowed, but haven't been added to the Minnesota Senate race numbers and they still have some of the challenged ballots to add in which should favor Franken because the Coleman campaign challenged an extraordinary number of pro-Franken votes according to earlier available news sources.

Still  Caleb Howe reported at 8pm last night that "Coleman Leading Franken By Single Digit" and tells us we should know the final results by Saturday December 20th.

But today we read from the Minneapolis StarTribune "Franken pushes his lead over Coleman past 250".

The Coleman campaign claims that up to 150 ballots were counted twice, but, as it currently stands, that wouldn't affect the outcome of the race if it did prove to be true.  

Norm Coleman's people also went to Minnesota's seven member Supreme court this week to keep the improperly rejected absentee  ballots out unless a separate court challenge was held after the ballots were all counted. His lawyer insulted at least one justice, Paul Anderson, when he complained that the Minnesota Senate race would be like Florida 2000 if the improperly rejected absentee ballots were counted.   And Chief Justice Eric Magnuson had already dived right in to another civic job and was helping check challenged ballots when he wasn't holding court.  But Former Minnesota Vikings Purple People Eater and Football Hall of Famer Justice Alan Page seemed amenable to Coleman lawyer Roger Magnuson (Who is no relation to the Chief Justice. This is Minnesota after all.)  The court rejected the Coleman camp's demand that, possibly, the race be decided in favor of Franken in their court showing they are very smart people after all.  

BTW, I got most of my facts on this case from an AP report that was withdrawn within 12 hrs.  I think I can assume that was because it was embarassing to Republicans.  The history of such AP articles being replaced by another or changed to take out certain information is phenomenal.  Here is a StarTribune report that covers the case but it's not the one I reported from.

But the good news is that Franken looks more and more likely to be the winner, come tomorrow.

That might actually be good for Coleman.  Then he can get to work on his FEC problems.  (More later on the Federal Elections Commission's investigation over $75,000 that was paid by a Coleman donor to the candidate's wife's employer and seems to have been passed to the Coleman family to help pay for a home upgrade.)

*Apology:  Apparently, only the results of the challenged ballots were to be announced Saturday.  The state election board now has to work out the details over the inappropriately denied absentee ballots with Franken and Coleman  teams so that they can be counted.  Therefore, the  final final results were not announced Saturday, only the results of counting the approved challenged ballots.  The counting of the approved challenged ballots gave Franken a 262 vote lead according to Washington Post report "Franken Takes His First Lead In Hotly Contested Senate Race".  Return to * at top.

tags: al franken  norm coleman  minnesota  minnesota  supreme court  football hall of fame  vikings purple people eaters  

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