Franken-Coleman recount: For a victor, wait till next year!

The 2008 U.S. Senate election became the 2009 U.S. Senate outcome today.

Stop thinking this thing will be determined today or next week.

And don’t be mau-maued by the mainstream media – or any partisans -- into thinking there’s a five-vote margin now between Al Franken and Norm Coleman.

Enjoy your holiday. Go shopping. Stimulate the economy.

Check back in January.

That’s when either Coleman will retain his seat or Franken will grab it from him.

That became clearer Thursday when, more than six weeks after Minnesotans cast their votes, a boatload of stuff happened. Complicated stuff.

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled on the inclusion of previously rejected absentee ballots. Call it a split decision.

The State Canvassing Board heard from both campaigns on the matter of whether some votes were counted twice. A decision on how to deal with this conundrum is expected Friday morning.

Some mega-media web sites, such as the Star Tribune’s, claimed that following today’s session of the canvassing board, that Coleman’s lead has shrunk to only five votes … a questionable number, to be sure.

Let’s take a quick stroll down Recount Lane.

The Supremes
Nothing is simple in this recount saga, and the Minnesota Supreme Court made sure of that. (See “Order, 12-18-08) here.

In a complex ruling today, three of the five members of the Court who heard the Coleman campaign’s lawsuit Wednesday sort of sided with the Franken campaign. Justices Lorie Skjerven Gildea, Christropher  Dietzen and Helen Meyer said certain previously rejected absentee ballots should be counted.

That’s a win for Franken.

But the three-judge majority instructed both campaigns to come to an agreement on exactly which rejected ballots should be counted. They said the rejected absentee ballots should be addressed in each county and not by the canvassing board.

That’s a win for Coleman.

As to how exactly the two sides are going to agree on anything – such as the sun coming up in the East – remains unclear.

As Hamline University law professor David Schultz, an elections expert, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press Thursday night: “Why they threw in the stuff about the campaigns agreeing, I don't know. It essentially gives the candidates a veto. It's totally bizarre. It gives Coleman a reason to disagree with every ballot.”

Justices Alan Page and Paul Anderson dissented, the former NFL star taking the most progressive position that all ballots should count.

Statewide, there could be as many as 1,600 votes at stake, which is a ton in a race that ended with a margin of 215 on Election Night.

“We look forward to initiating this process as soon as possible,” Franken lawyer Marc Elias said in a statement tonight.

Tony Trimble, a Coleman lawyer, said he was poised to follow the court ruling. And Coleman campaign sources told MinnPost Thursday night that its side has “reached out” to the Franken campaign in hopes of beginning to figure out how to process the 1,600 or so rejected absentee ballots statewide.

Being a fly on the wall of those meetings would be a treat.

But here’s the most important stat: The Supreme Court gave the campaigns and counties until Dec. 31 to report back to the canvassing board.

Thus, it is certain now that this election will not be determined until January. The current Congress ends on Jan. 3. The new Congress convenes on Jan. 6.

Folks, we’re heading for the deadline.

Duplicates
As first discussed by MinnPost’s Eric Black Wednesday, there’s a dispute over some alleged duplicate votes, many in Hennepin County.

The Coleman campaign has alleged that at least a dozen precincts in Hennepin – and others elsewhere – may have been counted twice because of a flaw in administering some ballots.

The Franken campaign doubts that’s true but also notes that the Coleman campaign previously agreed that such possible double-counting is not the decision of the canvassing board.

The board heard 30 minutes of argument today from lawyers for both campaigns. The board seemed to be leaning toward siding with Franken lawyer Marc Elias; any dispute over alleged double counting should be reserved for a post-recount court contest of this election.

This, despite the admission by Minneapolis elections official Cindy Reichert – she of the disappeared 133 votes – that there have surely been votes counted twice in her precincts.

But to investigate all of this is out of the purview of the canvassing board, it seems. That’s what a few members said Thursday. More on that Friday.

But if the alleged duplicates are permitted to be part of the recount, that sure seems like another plank for a Coleman challenge of this recount if it goes Franken’s way …  where it just may be headed.

Franken closes in
OK, go to the vaunted Star Tribune’s website right now.

It claims that Coleman is ahead by only five votes.

It’s a silly number, but one that’s making the scene at the canvassing board increasingly tense. Lots of folks have their laptops fired up and are monitoring the Strib site.

It’s like watching the Times Square ball go down on New Year’s Eve.

For their part, the Franken folks believe their candidate is actually ahead, by four votes. That’s a position Franken counsel Marc Elias has held for more than a week based on his internal analysis.

But that five-vote margin, as reported by the Strib and some other sites, doesn’t take into account, literally thousands of challenged ballots that were withdrawn by both campaigns or the still in-doubt rejected absentee ballots.

Take it from MinnPost: That number “5” is meaningless.

Oh, it has political and spin clout, and it’s closer to the Franken campaign’s belief of where it stands.

But it’s not real. It’s barely a guide.

Remember, this thing is about January, not Dec. 19.

The scene
If you’ve never witnessed a high-stakes U.S. Senate election recount, it looks like this:

* Scene: your average hearing room in your state’s main office building on the Capitol campus. High-backed black leather chairs for the State Canvassing Board judges and their staff. A semi-circular table for them to lean on to prevent dozing off.

* In front of the board, on each side of the board, as in a courtroom, sit lawyers and staff for the two competing campaigns.

* Judges and staff at the front with quizzical and fatigued looks on their hungry faces. That’s what happens when you diligently examine 500 ballots filled out by people who are older than 18 but, for reasons known only to them, can’t fill in an oval with their pens.

* In the audience, a smattering of journalists all tapping emails to their spouses and friends in Tulsa on their laptops. They all know that what’s going on before them won’t determine who wins the U.S. Senate race. It will be a part of what makes either Norm Coleman or Al Franken win, but just one part.

* Photographers waiting for that one action shot … of the week, like when the chief justice of the Supreme Court examines a ballot filled with scribbles, seemingly by a third-grader, but by an adult from Plymouth, Ward 4, Precinct 20.

* It’s sort of like a very highly watched Woodbury City Council capital improvements subcommittee meeting.

Highly watched?

The UpTake, the nifty Twin Cities website, had about 2,000 viewers at 4:45 p.m. Thursday. The Star Tribune was showing the meeting, too, and garnering about 3,000 viewers as the day ended.

That’s 5,000 people easy who are being unproductive American workers, glued to their screens, turning Secretary of State Mark Ritchie into a reality show superstar.

If you want to have some fun, log into The UpTake and check out the comments. Thursday, as the Star Tribune’s website kept showing a narrowing Franken gap, the commenters at The UpTake were cyber-breathless.

“Only 10 more Franken ballots and he'll be winning!!!” wrote one commenter.

“Will snow start to fall in a few minutes, once Franken takes the lead?” wrote another.

“This is better than the Superbowl ... democracy 2.0!” wrote a third.

Sorry, gang, Franken can only take the lead once the canvassing board, the courts, and, perhaps, the U.S. Senate says he’s got the lead.

But these recount junkies nationwide are people who need to get out more.

They can’t be sitting around their laptops until January. It’s just not healthy.

Jay Weiner can be reached at jweiner [at] minnpost [dot] com.