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Ritchie’s office said Republican Sen. Norm Coleman leads Democrat Al Franken by 206 votes out of 2.9 million — a miniscule margin of seven-thousandths of 1 percent, but enough to trigger Minnesota’s first statewide general-election recount since 1962.
The Coleman campaign on Wednesday questioned recent vote-total changes that narrowed that margin, while officials in Winona and Minnesota’s 86 other counties prepared for a recount that should start next week and last until mid-December.
Vote-total changes during the recount likely will result from ballots that were inaccurately tabulated by optical-scan machines or were improperly marked by voters, state and local officials said. The latter issue can occur when voters make checkmarks instead of filling out ovals next to their candidate, or when voters attempt to scratch out their first choice and pick another candidate, Winona County Auditor Cherie MacLennan said.
“We will be looking for improperly marked ballots; there will be people who failed to follow instructions,” MacLennan said. “There will be, no doubt, some changes in numbers because of those issues.”
Winona County voters cast more than 24,000 ballots in the race; MacLennan expects to oversee a recount of those ballots at the County Government Center in the coming weeks, though she hadn’t received confirmation of the date and location on Wednesday.
Recounts in each Minnesota county will involve local auditors such as MacLennan and lawyers for the Franken and Coleman campaigns, which will be present at every recount site. The local officials will count each ballot by hand; they’ll first identify clearly marked ballots and then seek consensus from the campaign lawyers on ballots in which voter intent is less clear.
If the lawyers can’t agree on a voter’s intent, the ballot in question will be judged by the
five-person canvassing board announced Wednesday, which includes Ritchie, Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson and Justice G. Barry Anderson, both appointed by GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty; and Ramsey County Chief Judge Kathleen Gearin and her deputy, Judge Edward Cleary. Gearin rose to the bench in a nonpartisan election in 1986. Cleary was appointed in 2002 by then-Gov. Jesse Ventura, an Independence Party member.
The canvassing board will oversee a U.S. Senate race that’s drawn national attention as Coleman’s lead shrunk by nearly 1,000 votes in the past week. The vote-total changes occurred after local officials finalized their ballot counts — most recently when officials in St. Louis and Hennepin counties corrected tabulation errors and further boosted Franken’s vote total. The Coleman campaign called the changes “enormously troubling” and said they raise doubt about the process, though the campaign hasn’t offered evidence of tampering or other illegalities.
MacLennan said her office changed the Winona County vote total on Nov. 5 after discovering four uncounted absentee ballots: two cast for Franken and two for Coleman. Franken topped Coleman by 12,755 votes to 11,316 votes in Winona County, or 46.8 percent to 41.6 percent.
MacLennan said Winona County officials haven’t participated in a recount since 1990, when Democratic state Sen. Steve Morse beat Republican challenger Greg Abnet by 113 votes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Mark Sommerhauser may be reached at (507) 453-3514 or at msommerhauser@winonadailynews.com
