Star Tribune’s Minn. Recount Story

Under the headline – "Absentee ballots spark a new battle" – with the subhead - "A Ramsey County judge has denied a bid by lawyers representing Sen. Norm Coleman's campaign to delay the opening of 32 absentee ballots from Minneapolis" -

the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports - - -

A Ramsey County judge on Saturday denied a bid by lawyers representing U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's campaign to delay the opening of 32 absentee ballots from Minneapolis.

The request touched off a fresh war of words in a Senate race where 221 votes separate Republican Coleman and DFLer Al Franken in unofficial tallies.

The 32 Minneapolis ballots were part of the normal delivery of absentee ballots late in the polling day, according to Election Director Cindy Reichert.

She said they were retained when they couldn't be delivered because some polling places had shut down for the day. She said the ballots were kept sealed until other election duties were completed and were being counted Saturday afternoon, with results to be delivered to the state on Monday.

However, the Coleman campaign contended that the integrity of the ballots "is in serious doubt." Its argument for a temporary restraining order was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds by Kathleen Gearin, chief district court judge in Ramsey County.

The Franken campaign accused Coleman of a "Saturday morning sneak attack" intended to short-circuit the counting of ballots. But Coleman's campaign said it merely wanted to delay the opening until it could be assured in a future hearing that the ballots were in the continuous possession of election officials.

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Comments:

Just to be clear: Judge Gearin’s ruling on “jurisdictional grounds” means she simply ruled her court had no jurisdiction to rule on the Coleman requests. She otherwise made no ruling on Coleman’s attorney’s actions.

The AP also reported this story here.

Neither news org said anything about further legal steps Coleman might take with regard to this particular group of ballots about which he’s raised questions.

As of 12:15 PM today I can find nothing else “new” on the Coleman-Franken recount at the Strib, the AP or Powerline.

I’ll keep checking as I hope many of you will with a quick heads up to me if you find something.

The recount is a very big story for many reasons.

It’s not getting much play in the national media.

We should all worry that absent a lot of media attention to the recount, the chances of skullduggery occurring increase.