« DUPLICATE BALLOTS A “BIG ISSUE” | Home | SHAME: “NON-PARTISAN†SECRETARY OF STATE MARK RITCHIE’S OFFICE PARTNERS WITH HYPER-PARTISAN LIBERAL VIDEO-BLOG »
COLEMAN FOR U.S. SENATE PRESS RELEASE: “SECRETARY OF STATE’S OFFICE ACTIONS WILL DISENFRANCHISE THOUSANDS OF MINNESOTA VOTERS”
By Michael B. Brodkorb | December 29, 2008
St. Paul – The following statement was released by Coleman for Senate lead Counsel, Fritz Knaak, this evening, in response to an email from Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann that unilaterally ensures that no rejected absentee ballots will be reviewed and counted in the Senate recount:
“In one fell swoop, the Deputy Secretary of State intends to disenfranchise thousands of Minnesota voters whose absentee ballots may have been improperly rejected. It is stunning that a senior representative of the Secretary of State’s Office would take the position that, because the Franken campaign was unwilling to offer a credible proposal to review rejected absentee ballots, the net result is that no rejected absentee ballots should be reviewed. His interpretation is simply wrong, and is tantamount to disenfranchisement by decree – and we will have no part of it. We urge the Secretary of State, and the Franken campaign, to seriously review our proposal that will ensure that more than 1,400 rejected absentee ballots will be reviewed for inclusion in the recount. To do anything less would be for the Secretary of State’s Office and the Franken campaign to take the position that a lack of agreement on the part of the two campaigns should result in no rejected absentee ballots being reviewed.â€
If Gelbmann’s email and position are to be taken literally, local election official who are to begin gathering tomorrow will be prohibited from sorting any rejected absentee ballots because the two campaigns could not reach an agreement. Furthermore, Gelbmann himself rejected efforts by the Coleman campaign to have a proposed list provided to county officials to pull for review of rejected absentee ballots.
“The Deputy Secretary of State actively interfered in our ability to provide a proposed list of rejected absentee ballots to be pulled by local election officials for review,†Knaak added. “And, then, after standing in the way of this effort, he sent an email out late today basing his decision on his claim that the Coleman and Franken campaigns didn’t meet a deadline. It is incomprehensible that the Deputy Secretary of State would take this position when in fact he himself is now creating a clear crisis in this process by ensuring that no rejected absentee ballots will be allowed to be sorted by local election officials. We hope that he and the Franken campaign will re-evaluate their position and accept our offer to ensure that more than 1,400 rejected absentee ballots are reviewed for counting.â€
Text of Gelbmann’s email is as follows:
From: Jim Gelbmann
Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008 4:48 PM
To: ‘fknaak@klaw.us’; ‘Tony Trimble’; ‘Lillehaug,David’; ‘K Hamilton’
Subject: Additions To Wrongfully Rejected Ballots
Gentlemen:
It would appear as if Rule 15 that we adopted last week would preclude the addition of any additional wrongfully rejected ballots unless both candidates agree. That list would have had to have been forwarded to the counties by 3:00 p.m. today.
I assume the rule now prevents any additions to the approximately 1350 ballots that the counties have identified as being wrongfully rejected.
Rule 15 states, in pertinent part:
15. By 3:00 p.m. on Monday, December 29th, the candidates’ representatives will forward to the local election officials a list of all additional rejected absentee ballots for which both candidates’ representatives now agree were wrongfully rejected.
To my knowledge, no such list was forwarded to the counties by the 3:00 p.m. deadline.
My best regards.
Sincerely,
Jim
Jim Gelbmann
Deputy Secretary of State
180 State Office Building
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55155
(651) 201-xxxx (office)
(651) 334-xxxx (cell)
Tags: Uncategorized
Topics: Uncategorized | 11 Comments »
11 Responses to “COLEMAN FOR U.S. SENATE PRESS RELEASE: “SECRETARY OF STATE’S OFFICE ACTIONS WILL DISENFRANCHISE THOUSANDS OF MINNESOTA VOTERS””
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:09 AM
Um…if that was the rule, then it appears pretty straightforward and clear-cut; I can appreciate that the rule itself may be a bad one, but it’s hard to see how this interpretation of it is in any way wrong.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:09 AM
Perhaps I missed something, but it seems to me that the memo from Mr. Gelbmann simply confirms that the list of about 1,350 wrongly rejected absentee ballots WILL BE counted. Because the Coleman and Franken campaigns could not agree on a process to expand the list, no further ballots will be added to the list.
One gets the impression that the Coleman camp already knows that Al Franken won this election. Their press releases and tactics of late seem more geared to throwing mud on the Franken victory more than anything else.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:29 AM
[...] post by WP-AutoBlog Import var AdBrite_Title_Color = ’0000FF’; var AdBrite_Text_Color = ’000000′; var [...]
December 30th, 2008 at 2:04 AM
“The Deputy Secretary of State actively interfered in our ability to provide a proposed list of rejected absentee ballots to be pulled by local election officials for review,â€
To paraphrase, “Hi, my name is Fritz Knaak and I just checked my voter vault and this is the list of people that voted for Coleman. Count them or else!”
December 30th, 2008 at 6:37 AM
Really, the more I think about this the dumber it gets. Okay, the Coleman campaign is right — this is a dumb rule. What idiots came up with it? Oh yeah — the Coleman campaign, working with the Franken campaign and the SOS. I mean, you guys wrote this rule. Is it now your position that rules don’t matter?
December 30th, 2008 at 7:43 AM
Have to agree with Jeff Fecke’s first comment. When the Supreme Court gave the campaigns veto power over which absentees to count this type of bickering and posturing became inevitable. It was a ludicrous ruling.
December 30th, 2008 at 9:52 AM
“Really, the more I think about this the dumber it gets.”
That’s not surprising, Feckless. Anything that remains in your presence for any length of time gets “dumber”.
“I mean, you guys wrote this rule.
Heh, I can picture you stamping your little feet and squealing when you wrote that!
So, tell us Feckless…about that honorary uterus….do you actually wear it around the house like a sundress, or is it just something you hang on the wall and pet from time to time?
*LMAO@U*
December 30th, 2008 at 9:56 AM
This is perhaps the most absurd press release yet from Team Coleman. So, Franken wants to count all 1400 absentee ballots. Coleman doesn’t, refuses to agree to count all 1400 absentee ballots and then now cries bloody hell that all 1400 absentee ballots won’t be counted?
Why doesn’t Coleman just agree to have all of the ballots determined by independent election officials as improperly rejected counted so that not a single absentee voter is disenfranchised?
December 30th, 2008 at 10:05 AM
Never mind, Jeffy…I have my answer.
Get a load of Feckless’ latest concern:
“As you recall, last week Dennis Prager wrote a long and tedious column about how women just don’t give up the nookie to their spouses enough, and how everyone would be happier if only women would stop worrying about whether they liked sex, and start just having it as part of their marital duties, because —[sob] and I think I speak for everything [sic?] —
(Do you really think of yourself as a “thing” Feckless, or was that just a Freudian slip?)
-there’s nothing hotter than having sex with someone who is doing so with the same excitement and joy that one brings to filling the dishwasher.”
Maybe you had just frame that thing and hang it on the wall after all….God knows you don’t want to get knocked up! Pffft.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:48 PM
Thanks for the link, Swiftee.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:26 PM
No sweat, Jeffy.
Glad to see the estrogen treatments have gotten you off the ledge. It’s so much more satisfying to just go buy a new pair of shoes when you’re feeling sorry for yourself than squirting tears and waving a razor blade around, isn’t it?
Some dog faced bitches really don’t know how good they’ve got it!