State: Wrongfully rejected absentee ballots could near 1,600

[kpete]

Source: Minneopolis Star Tribune



The projected number prompted the state Canvassing Board this morning to ask election officials in all 87 counties to count the improperly rejected ballots.

By PAUL WALSH and BOB VON STERNBERG, Star Tribune Staff Writers

Last update: December 12, 2008 - 1:15 PM
It is surprising if Minnesota election laws do not permit the Canvassing Board to count what apparently were mistakenly rejected absentee … read more ballots. If, however, that interpretation of the law is correct, the Board is proceeding in the right way by obtaining rulings from each of the local boards of how many such wrongly rejected absentee ballots exist.

Several hundred absentee ballots have been wrongfully rejected in the Nov. 4 election and that total could more than double by the time all Minnesota counties turn in their reviews, the secretary of state's office this morning told a panel charged with overseeing the recount in the overtime U.S. Senate contest between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic rival Al Franken.

Moments later, the five-member state Canvassing Board voted unanimously to ask election officials in all 87 counties to count the improperly rejected ballots. However, the board members stressed that they only have the authority to make a recommendation.

In response, the Coleman campaign announced its intention to urge the state Supreme Court to order counties to follow a standard procedure in counting rejected absentee ballots. The campaign also said that counting these ballots should be halted until the court rules.

The board was told this morning that 49 counties have examined 4,823 rejected absentee ballots and 638 of those were determined by local officials to have been wrongfully rejected.

Read more: http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/36043514.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUX

[amdezurik]

1. who are the ones rejecting these ballots?

it sure does look like at least a common practice all over the state. Is it political or is it someone blocking their neighbor because of a quarrel or is it just plain not knowin the rules? At the very least afterwards that should be looked into.

[aquart]

3. I don't understand. If they know they were "wrongfully" rejected...

Are they counting them or not? And if not, WHY not?

[amdezurik]

4. why not is the big question

they have been shown to be wrongly rejected, no question on the ones I have seen so why the big resistance to counting them by Coleman?

[supernova]

2. You know what this sounds like?

It sounds like the Repubs are simply rejected absentee ballots from the get go and then making the Dems fight for every single one of them. Except that we have only been doing that for the past two elections.

[BR_Parkway]

5. and going to court to make them stop counting, now where have we

heard that before?