The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

December 3, 2008

Local county recount complete

By Mark Fischenich

MANKATO — The recount of the U.S. Senate race has been completed in Mankato-area counties as Blue Earth and Le Sueur counties wrapped up their counts this week.

In Blue Earth County, which finished Monday morning, a total of 263 ballots were challenged by representatives of Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken. The challenged ballots account for virtually all of the changes in vote totals for the two candidates from the election night machine count to the recount totals.

Coleman, who was credited with 13,665 Blue Earth County votes on election night, had 13,555 in the recount — a reduction of 110, with the Franken campaign challenging 122 ballots.

The recount total for Franken was 14,350, down 131 from the 14,481 on Nov. 4. The Coleman campaign challenged 141 ballots.

Challenged ballots aren’t counted in the totals. The State Canvassing Board will rule on challenged ballots beginning Dec. 16. Coleman had a lead of 215 votes going into the recount out of more than 2.9 million ballots cast.

The extra challenged ballots beyond the reductions in the two candidates’ vote totals likely involve challenges of ballots where there was no apparent vote in the Senate race or there was a vote for candidates other than Franken or Coleman.

In Le Sueur County, where the recount wrapped up at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, the number of challenges was much lower and the only changes in the vote counts seemed to result from those challenges.

Coleman was credited with 6,304 votes in the recount, 16 fewer than the first count with Franken challenging 22 ballots. Franken received 5,267 votes in the recount, down by 12 with 12 challenges from the Coleman campaign.

County officials were relieved to be done with the recount duty. The work is actually the state’s responsibility, but most county election officials volunteered to handle the task in their county without seeking reimbursement.

“We donated a heck of a lot of time,” said Patty O’Connor, the elections director in Blue Earth County.

And the work might not be quite over for county officials. O’Connor said it appears each county will be asked to identify how many absentee ballots were mistakenly rejected before Election Day.

“I think they want to know how many of them are out there in the field and if they would make a difference,” she said. “So that’s what’s going on next.”

Le Sueur County Chief Deputy Auditor Carol Blaschko said the attorney general’s office is expected to make a ruling on whether the absentee ballot work should be done.

“So we’re just kind of waiting on that before we’ll go tally that up,” Blaschko said.

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