Coleman asks for exclusion of ballots that can’t be found

The campaign of Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) is calling for 133 ballots that apparently went missing in a Minneapolis precinct not to be part of the ongoing recount between Coleman and Democrat Al Franken.

The votes apparently favor Franken by a margin of 46 and could be pivotal in a race that, according to Franken’s campaign, is as close as four votes.

{mosads}Coleman’s campaign is calling on the precinct where the ballots were apparently lost not to report the initial totals of those ballots to the state canvassing board, but instead to report only the hand recount totals.

The precinct has suggested it will report totals that both include and exclude the missing ballots, leaving it up to the state canvassing board to determine whether to tally the votes.

Coleman’s campaign made the case Wednesday that the precinct has no legal authority to report the totals that include the initial count of the 133 ballots.

Coleman lawyer Fritz Knaak cites a county district court decision in a 2002 state Senate race recount, which states that hand recount totals should be used over machine counts, even if there is some evidence that certain ballots are missing from the recount.

In the case, the canvassing board awarded the machine count totals after 17 ballots were removed and burned by an election judge.

The Mower County District Court overturned that decision, though, stating that the true nature of those votes could not be determined and that the hand recount is more reliable.

Franken attorney Marc Elias said the campaign would file a brief on the issue with the canvassing board later Wednesday, and that legal precedent is firmly on its side.

The campaign has taken the tack that legal ballots should be counted no matter what — whether they be rejected for inadequate reasons or lost. It released a Web video Wednesday seeking to build momentum to include absentee ballots it alleges were improperly disqualified in the final tally.

The video features testimonials from eight Minnesota voters whom the Franken campaign says had their ballots rejected improperly. The campaign has also launched a website urging Minnesotans to share their stories if their ballot has been rejected.

The Franken campaign says in the video that as many as 1,000 absentee ballots were “mistakenly rejected,” and calls on election officials to count the voters’ ballots.

“It boggles my mind that Norm Coleman would be OK with allowing Minnesotans to be disenfranchised when they did nothing wrong,” Franken spokesman Andy Barr said in an afternoon conference call.

Coleman’s campaign said Franken released the video to set up a future court challenge over the election.

“While our campaign remains focused on the recount, it’s clear the Franken campaign is more interested in court challenges, U.S. Senate intervention and making new commercials attacking local election officials,” said Mark Drake, a spokesman for the Coleman campaign.

“We’ve said from the beginning of this process that the Franken campaign was laying the groundwork to ignore the results of the recount, and today’s new ad demonstrates that is exactly what they are doing.”