Secretary of State lays out details of Senate recount (MN)

[struggle4progress]

By Paul Demko 11/12/08 5:38 PM

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie announced the formation of a five-person statewide canvassing board today that will oversee the mandatory recount in the U. S. Senate race. Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson and Ramsey County Chief Judge Kathleen Gearin, along with two other judges, will join Ritchie on the panel ...

The recount is slated to begin next Wednesday, with ballots being manually inspected at roughly 120 locations across the state. The process is expected to conclude by December 5. Norm Coleman currently holds a 206-vote lead over Al Franken, but that margin has dropped by more than 500 votes since election day as counties have corrected errors and certified results.

Local canvassing boards will inspect each of the nearly 2.9 million ballots to determine which candidate a voter intended to support. In Ramsey County, for example, eight teams of inspectors are slated to begin examining the ballots Wednesday morning at the county’s election offices. Authorized representatives from the Franken and Coleman campaigns will monitor the process and have the ability to challenge any decisions that they deem questionable. The recount process will also be open to the public.

Then starting on December 16, the statewide canvassing board will be begin ruling on all challenged ballots, with the hope of certifying a winner in the contest before the end of the year. “We expect everything to move smoothly,” Ritchie said, noting that local election officials routinely conduct partial recounts to checkfor machine errors. “Their fairly used to this process” ...

http://minnesotaindependent.com/17336/secretary-of-state-lays-out-details-of-senate-recount

[Eric J in MN]

1. The five people who make the final ruling on disputed ballots will include...

...2 Democrats, 2 Republicans, and 1 Independent.

(party affiliation assumed partially on who appointed them)