STATEMENT FROM COLEMAN FOR SENATE COUNSEL TONY TRIMBLE
ST. PAUL - Coleman for Senate Counsel Tony Trimble today issued the following statement:
The actions today by the Canvassing Board are but the first step in what, unfortunately, will now have to be a longer process. This process isn’t at the end; it is now just at the beginning. We will contest the results of the Canvassing Board -- otherwise, literally millions of Minnesotans will be disenfranchised.
While we appreciate the effort of this board to do the work, the reality is that any certification of vote totals at this point is only preliminary. As this Canvassing Board has recognized, there still exist serious problems with inconsistencies in the administrative recount, and therefore in the validity and reliability of the numbers certified today. There can be no count that is accurate or valid when 654 potentially valid absentee votes remain disenfranchised and when some votes are counted twice – leading to a violation of one of the most sacred principles of our constitution – “One person, One vote.”
And, there can be no justification to report out a total when 133 votes were included in a count where there are not ballots to support them. Or when a batch of votes were not counted on Election Night, but were miraculously “found” during the recount and included.
If the Canvassing Board had resolved all these issues, then the process might be completed. But the Board has deferred the resolution of those issues for the contest phase provided for in Minnesota law. Since the process is far from complete, there can be no confidence in the current results of the United States Senate Recount, and we will file a contest within the next 24 hours to promptly correct those problems and inaccuracies. The Supreme Court ruling today also emphasizes that that’s what we must do to provide an accurate count for this election.
Senator Coleman is adamant that we not wait a moment longer than necessary to ensure that the election be completed with accuracy and validity – and most importantly, without disenfranchising Minnesota voters or having a cloud remain over the results.
The utter lack of uniformity in the treatment of rejected absentee ballots, resulting in the disenfranchising of voters, is perhaps the most troublesome aspect of the recount. Similar ballots were treated differently by different counties. This creates an Equal Protection violation that fatally taints any result that includes these ballots. This was precisely what the Minnesota Supreme Court order said to avoid.
Unfortunately, with this announcement today, numerous Minnesotans will be wrongly disenfranchised because their votes are not counted. Mr. Franken and his campaign for purely political reasons no longer want to “count all the votes”. And, it is with great disappointment that we’ve seen senior members of the Secretary of State’s Office contributing to the process being broken. When senior members of the Secretary of State’s office, charged with ensuring a fair and balanced process, engage in acts which undermine that neutrality, all of us must be concerned.
The fact is the Canvassing Board’s current totals are invalid and unreliable because:
·Original and Duplicate ballots have been double counted – even members of the Canvassing Board acknowledge this is a serious issue, yet nothing was resolved – instead, double counted votes were simply added to their recount totals.
·Newly Discovered ballots, which appeared for the first time during the recount and are included in the Canvassing Board totals without proper reconciliation to the number of voters signed into the precincts on Election Day.
·Missing Ballots supposedly tallied on election night that could not be found during the recount process are included in the Canvassing Board count contrary to Minnesota precedent.
·And again, an inconsistent treatment of challenged ballots – an inconsistent treatment of wrongfully rejected absentee ballots – and an inconsistent treatment of the campaign by the very office charged with coordinating this recount simply results in a process that is broken.
The recount was supposed to be a recount – fair and reasoned – and one that would retain the credibility of the outcome of this election. However, it ceased being that the day that duplicate ballots and “missing ballots” were included in the count, and simply became more and more broken each and every day.
We had hoped that the board would refrain from reporting out with unanimity a recount total today. Since that did not happen, we will file an election contest within the next 24 hours. It will be based upon the issues I have outlined, as well as the lack of inclusion of 654 additional ballots that we believe should be a part of this recount and the very serious issue of included double counted votes that disenfranchises Minnesotans.
Our goal and obligation should be to get an accurate and valid vote as quickly as possible, and that is our reason for acting with urgency. Minnesotans ought to be able to expect that an accurate and valid recount would have ensured two United States Senators from Minnesota tomorrow. However, because the process is broken that will not happen.
