Franken's campaign is upset about the allegedly missing 130 ballots in Minneapolis. Attorney Marc Elias said in a press conference that most of those ballots are votes for Al Franken and he said officials should "move heaven and earth to find those ballots" because "the integrity of Minnesota elections is at stake."
Here's more from their press release:
Franken lead recount attorney Marc Elias:
"These ballots must be found. The outcome of this election is at stake. But let me be clear: The integrity of this election is also at stake, as is the integrity of Minnesota's electoral process. We won't stand for the disenfranchisement of 133 Minnesota voters, and neither will the people of this state. Find the ballots."
The Franken campaign released a list of steps that should be taken to find the missing ballots:
- Interview every person who worked at the precinct on Election Day, every person who had a role in setting up or cleaning up at the church that served as a polling place, and every person who touched or transported the ballots either on Election Day or at any point between then and now.
- Conduct a systematic forensic search of the church that served as a polling place, any vehicle used to transport ballots or other elections materials, the warehouse where the ballots were stored.
- At the warehouse, catalog every envelope containing ballots.
- Review all precinct and polling place documentation, and all email or other communications relating to this precinct and this polling place.
- Establish a clear chain of custody noting exactly where these ballots were at every moment from Election Day until they were lost.
Those rejected absentee ballots are key and now we know more from the secretary of state:
WHAT: The state canvassing board will reconvene on Friday, Dec. 12 to discuss possible options for dealing with mistakenly rejected absentee ballots being sorted by county and local election officials.
And Coleman's camp has essentially equaled Franken's redrawal of challenged ballots earlier than originally stated:
ST. PAUL - Today Fritz Knaak, lead recount counsel for the Coleman for Senate campaign, announced the Coleman campaign will withdrawing 650 ballot challenges this afternoon. Knaak also reached out to Al Franken’s lead recount counsel this morning, requesting a meeting to discuss how both campaigns can reach a mutual agreement to further reduce the number of challenged ballots that will be brought before the state’s canvassing board.
Knaak stated, “Today, in the spirit of working to remedy an excess of challenged ballots, we will voluntarily withdraw 650 challenged by the Coleman campaign. This morning, I left a voicemail, and sent an email, to Franken campaign attorney Marc Elias regarding challenged ballots. We are doing so this in the spirit of reaching out to their campaign so we can sit down early next week and discuss what process we can agree to in order to winnow down these challenged ballots. At the end of the day, our mutual goal and obligation ought to be the people of Minnesota and their representatives on the Canvassing Board, as well as local election officials, to find a spirit of cooperation to reduce the number of challenged ballots to a true and meaningful number that can be fairly evaluated by the Canvassing Board.”
