As of this morning (Tuesday, 11/30) we are beginning the second day of the recount. The majority of the 87 counties in Minnesota finished yesterday, with only a few of the largest, most populous counties having votes that remain to be recounted. Those should be concluded in the next couple of days; certainly at the present rate of completion, I would expect them to be concluded by the end of the week at the very latest.
After the completion of the local process, those challenged ballots go 'up the ladder' of the process, for final determination. But THAT will be a separate post; I don't want to get ahead of myself.
There were significantly fewer votes cast in the 2010 election, compared to the 2010 elections.
Minnesota gained a certain notoriety and became the butt of national jokes for the 2008 recount that resulted in the eventual confirmation of Senator Al Franken, after more than six months. Most of that time was the result of a lengthy court challenge by bad loser Norm Coleman. That challenge to Minnesota election findings was lost, by unanimous court decisions, over and over and over.
Given the greater gap in votes between himself and Mark Dayton, and lacking the same financial support from outside of Minnesota to fund it, Tom Emmer has promised NOT to engage in a similar court battle.
I hope Tom Emmer will follow through on that promise, given the speed with which he had prepared himself with lawyers, and the court challenges he has filed (and lost) so far.
In the most recent morning news, much like the last recount, Tom Emmer is losing votes, down 4. The gap is widening, not growing smaller for Tom Emmer. That gap had been at 8,771 as the recount began. For Tom Emmer to prevail, he would have to have a net gain, not a loss, of more than 100 votes in every single Minnesota county. That is not going to happen, given the conclusion of the recount in so many counties, without that gain having been announced.
Mark Dayton, on the other hand, is up 20 MORE votes, just as Al Franken gained, not lost votes. I would predict that, given the fewer people voting, that changes to the final vote recount total will be smaller than the change in the totals in the Franken victory, probably significantly smaller, and that this very costly and extraordinarily transparent process, in which the marking of EVERY SINGLE ballot for governor is scrutinized by election judges, and observers from both parties, backed up by lawyers observing the observers, will not overturn the Dayton win as governor.
The Republicans seem to have recognized that they cannot realistically expect to make up that gap in votes, a gap which only fell within the mandated legal requirement for a recount by a fraction of a percentage point. Their strategy instead is to stall, to make losing legal challenges that would make the recount slower, including making - so far - over 281 challenges to ballots, of which are nearly all have been deemed frivolous, not legitimate, as determined by county auditors and election judges. The number of legitimate ballot challenges, divided between Dayton recounters and Emmer recounters, is approximately 20, in comparison.
After the acrimonious, costly delays of the 2010 election, clarifications were made to the election laws resulting in bipartisan improvements as well as expediting the process of the recount. As one of those participating in the recount, after taking the training to do so, I agreed NOT to blog, tweet, or otherwise make a public comment until after the process has gone through its various stages to completion. So the only information reported here is that gleaned from news sources that is already public.
I look forward to sharing my first hand experiences at the appropriate time, (and not before).
However, I CAN state here that the process was not only quicker, but is widely reported to have been less nasty than our last go around recounting. And I think it would be within the limits to which I agreed for me to indicate I had a really good time during the recount, including interacting with the participants from BOTH sides of the controversy.
Minnesota has a well deserved reputation among those who are experts in the area of election law as a very honest and a very accurate state, a reputation that I am pleased to affirm is well deserved. I'm even more pleased that our reputation for 'Minnesota Nice', where we are courteous and friendly to each other during the tensions of controversy is well deserved this election, too.
The recount resumes this morning at 8:30 a.m.!
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