MN Attorney General rules that election night totals can be used for missing ballots

[Bjorn Against]

Attorney General Lori Swanson said that based on case law, the board can accept the number counted on Election Night “if you believe those were cast and counted on Election Night.”

After several board members questioned Reichert about her calculations about the vote totals, she stated simply, “I am convinced those are correct.”

http://politicalblogs.startribune.com/bigquestionblog/?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUs

I will be writing more about this later, but this is very good news for Franken as it will give him a 47 vote net gain. After doing more analysis of the numbers it is clear that Franken does not have the huge lead in challenged ballots that I thought he did a few days ago. While I am fully convinced that he will make net gains from the challenged ballots it may not be enough to push him over the top, these additional 47 votes potentially could do it for him however.

[sabra]

1. thanks for the update - Franken Camp did say they thought they were up by 4...

it might come down to a handful of votes...

[Bjorn Against]

2. Update: 13 percent of rejected absentee ballots had no legal reason to be rejected

On to the improperly rejected absentee ballots. So far, in 49 counties, 4,823 rejected ballots have been examined and 638 of those were determined by local officials to have been wrongfully rejected, Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann reported. If that trend holds true, with more than 13 percent of the votes tossed improperly, that would end up totalling 1,587 statewide, he said.

http://politicalblogs.startribune.com/bigquestionblog/?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUs

This is quite an embarassment for the state to have so many ballots that were rejected for reasons which were not legal, but assuming that they will be counted this likely means a significant pickup for Franken.