Mark Ritchie

Four judges will join Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie on the state canvassing board next week to certify results in the state's U.S. Senate race between Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and his DFL challenger, Al Franken.

At last count, only 206 votes separated the two candidates.

Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, Associate Justice G. Barry Anderson, Ramsey County District Court Chief Judge Kathleen Gearin and Ramsey County District Court Assistant Chief Judge Edward Cleary will be part of the canvassing board.

Under state law, the canvassing board is headed by the secretary of state and must include two state Supreme Court justices and two district court judges.

The board, which will resolve disputes over ballots that were challenged during the recount process and certify the results, will convene at 1 p.m. Tuesday. The recount will begin the next day.

[This story first appeared in the 7 November 2008 PIM Weekly Report.]

The outsider ethos that has plagued Al Franken since the inception of his candidacy two years ago now manifests itself in an even uglier fashion: casting doubt on Minnesota's election process.

For 30-year New Yorker Franken, and the non-Minnesota crew who have been with him through a best-selling book, a failed national radio show and now what appears to be a lost bid for a U.S. Senate seat, there are election day fraud myths rivaling Homer.

In 2000, there was Florida... brought to the nation by the supposedly Machiavellian Princess in blue eyeshadow, GOP then-Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris.

In 2004, there was Ohio... brought to us by one of the most feared political creatures by the left, a conservative who happens to be black, GOP then-Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

In 2008, are we supposed to believe Al Franken lost because of election overseeing dereliction on the part of DFL Minnesota Secretary of State (SOS) Mark Ritchie?

I disagree with GOP U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's initial strategy of trying to discourage a recount. Franken is entitled to one, and Minnesota law wisely provides for one in close races.

However, Franken and the DFL Party are not entitled to, at best, cast doubt on our process, or worse, create chaos. The PR and legal strategy appears to hang on "properly cast votes properly counted." 

Franken:  His goal is "to ensure that every vote is properly counted.”

Minnesota is expecting a record turnout in today's presidential election.

But the calculation that political scientists use to determine the number of eligible voters in the state is in dispute. That means that the percentage of voters who turn out in Minnesota could be higher or lower based on the methodology that the secretary of state's office uses to determine the number of eligible voters.

On Oct. 31, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said in a press release that there are 3,741,514 eligible voters in Minnesota. He’s hoping 80 percent of those Minnesotans turn out at the polls. His office says the methodology that was used to determine the number of eligible voters is sound.

But Curtis Gans, the director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University in Washington, D.C., thinks the state’s eligibility number is too low. Gans puts Minnesota's eligible voters at 3,824,000.

The state is using a method to gauge voter turnout established by Michael McDonald of George Mason University.

With the voter eligibility number used by the secretary of state's office, 2,993,211 Minnesotans need to vote in order to achieve 80 percent turnout.

Achieving 80 percent using Gans' methodology would require 3,059,200 voters.

Gans, who supplies his voter estimates to the secretary of state, said he determined voter eligibility based on the U.S. Census Bureau's population figures among people age 18 and older minus non-citizens.

Minnesotans are expected to flock to the polls tomorrow in numbers not seen since the 1956 presidential election, when 83 percent of eligible voters chose between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson (and Eisenhower carried the state with 54 percent of the vote).

The unofficial slogan this year in Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's office is "80 in '08," meaning that the goal is 80 percent of eligible voters casting votes tomorrow.

"We think we're well prepared," Beth Fraser, director of governmental affairs in Ritchie's office, said Monday afternoon. "We've been working with the county and city officials for months now.

"The counties have told us that they've printed more than enough ballots; in some cases they've taken the number of registered voters (in the county) and doubled that."

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (DFL) had a great idea to coincide with Minnesota's 150th birthday this May: He invited all former Secretaries of State to join him in a reunion bringing current and former employees together to help celebrate the 150th anniversary of the office and to recognize their years of public service. At a reception, yesterday, Ritchie (2007-present) was joined by former Secretaries Arlen Erdahl (R, 1971-1975), Joan Growe (DFL, 1975-1999) and Mary Kiffmeyer (R, 1999-2007). To the best of the office's knowledge, the oldest living SOS staff is Mrs. Wille Tuvey of Watertown. Mrs. Tuvey, who will turn 100-years-old this July, worked for Secretary Mike Holm in the 1930s. [Holm served from 1921 until his death in 1952; interesting history about how his wife then served part of his term is here.]

Here are the four living Secretaries of State.

Here the four are joined by 99-year-old Mrs. Tuvey.

Kudos to DFL Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. His office is set to launch a brilliant and extremely helpful new tool: A precinct caucus finder. 

This is no small feat. Minnesota precinct caucuses are held in myriad places like schools, churches and town halls, and many of the locations change at the last minute. Notes Ritchie, "We had fabulous cooperation from all the political parties, big and small."