The Free Press, Mankato, MN

State and local election news

November 6, 2008

Small town votes now in: Franken gains

Buhl officials went home on election night

Elections and campaign officials waited and waited into Wednesday for a final tally of votes in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race.



In northeastern Minnesota, the town of Buhl's ballots had been cast but not counted. And it turns out election officials there counted the votes but never called them in.



St. Louis County Director of Elections Paul Tynjala said officials tried to call Buhl for the results, but everyone had already gone home. He calls the incident a "goof-up" in which someone thought someone else had already called in the votes.



Buhl finally reported its results at 8 a.m. Wednesday. And the results still didn't clarify the winner between Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken.



Mary Markas, one of Buhl's election judges, explained what happened. She said local election workers had just begun counting ballots Tuesday when the announcement was made that Barack Obama had won.



"The hand counting had just started and they already announced Obama was president and that's kind of demoralizing," she said. "We felt bad about that because we wondered if our votes even counted."



But the votes did matter, especially as the Coleman and Franken race tightened.



"When we arrived at work at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday we received a phone call from St. Louis County — they wanted our election numbers," said election official Mike Buchanan.



By Wednesday morning, with Coleman ahead by less than 1,000 votes, all eyes turned to Buhl. Even a few Franken supporters showed up at Buhl City Hall to get the numbers, which by then had already been sent to county officials.



"It just goes to show that when you think your vote doesn't count, it does count," said Markas.



Coleman received 152 votes in Buhl and Franken got 343, for a difference of 191 in the Democratic candidate's favor. Not enough to change the results, but enough to tighten the contest even more.



"If you think about it, what if Al Franken had been behind by 190 votes?" Markas said. "The Buhl votes would have won him the election."

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