At 8:00pm, the Office of the Secretary of State posted information about the recount:

“Recount results shown are incomplete and unofficial. Results shown are subject to change and correction at any time until the State Canvassing Board certifies the results of the recount.

Statewide totals shown are for reported precincts only, and are partial until all the precincts in Minnesota have been recounted. Ballots reported as challenged by either candidate will not be counted for any candidate until the challenges have been finally determined by the State Canvassing Board.”

As of 8:21pm 62.55% of the precincts, representing a total of 44.65% of ballots have been recounted on the first day of this recount.

The link to this information as well as more details is found at http://electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/20101102/GovRecount.asp

DULUTH NEWS TRIBUNE EDITORIAL: Election reform: Minnesota needs more

Was it Minnesota's shame, last year's race for U.S. Senate, with all its name-calling, accusations and nasty TV ads? The race actually turned uglier after Election Day when an impossibly narrow margin of victory was reversed amid verbal assaults launched from the camps of Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger, and eventual winner, Al Franken.

Voter fraud, they yelled. Ballots uncounted. Votes improperly rejected. Minnesotans disenfranchised.

It all played out on a national stage.

But the ugliness, as we first argued more than

10 months ago, actually was Minnesota's opportunity.

That's because, without controversy, "You never look into [election-related issues] with any care," as Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said in an interview with the News Tribune editorial board in January. "The recount gave us information and political momentum to fix things. ... There was a learning process we never would have had without the recount."

Because of Franken-Coleman, Ritchie traveled the state, hosting at least 35 meetings with voters, election judges, county auditors and others. They chatted about what went well and, more critically, debated what needed to be repaired.

Read the complete editorial.

Secetary of State Ritchie unveils new election reform ideas

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie unveiled a redesign of absentee ballot envelopes and instructions Friday, Nov. 13 to further streamline Minnesota's absentee ballot process with the goal of helping more voters successfully cast their ballots in elections while maintaining election integrity safeguards.

Read the complete story.

Election watchdogs release report on 2008 election and Coleman-Franken recount

Is Minnesota’s election process faulty?

Not at all, according to a Minnesota election watchdog group that monitored last winter’s recount. In fact the group, Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota (CEIMN), reported last week that the election process went smoothly.

The CEIMN report — “Eyes on the Vote Count: Non-partisan Observer Reports of Minnesota’s 2008 Audit and Recount” — is available at www.ceimn.org.

Read more...

Reforms to Minnesota's ballot rules pushed back to next year

...Here's how Ritchie described the situation: "The procedure for sending out 300,000 absentee ballots to 4,000 polling places to be processed by 30,000 mostly volunteer election officials at the end of the day after 3 million voters walked through the door — when you say it out loud, that's crazy."

After the election, Ritchie solicited suggestions for repairs from city, county and township election officials. Their ideas were incorporated in the Legislature's major election reform bill of the session. 

Read more...

Editorial: Election bills fell to partisan 'gotcha'

Plenty of Minnesotans will follow today's oral arguments with considerable impatience and frustration. They'll wonder why several thousand of the last election's 290,000 absentee ballots landed in legal limbo. They'll ask whether a surer system could be devised to make absentee ballots less prone to administrative errors and legal second-guessing.

Several county elections officials on the receiving end of those questions answered them at a Humphrey Institute conference last week, with abundant frustration of their own. Yes, they said, we know how to improve absentee balloting to minimize this problem in the future. We worked persistently with both parties in the Legislature this year to get a reasonable remedy through the House and Senate. We want to move the processing of absentee ballots out of precincts and into county offices, to improve uniformity and relieve pressure on already busy election judges.

Read more...

Despite Coleman-Franken fallout, Pawlenty scotched election reform

If vetoes are like slapshot goals in hockey, then Gov. Tim Pawlenty scored an election-reform hat trick last week. After vetoing motor-voter and felon-notification, he scotched the state Legislature’s big omnibus elections bill.

The measure included provisions drawn from at least eight separate bills, from an earlier primary date to absentee-ballot streamlining. While the bill was  not everything reformers had sought — no early voting, for instance — it would have made dozens of improvements to the current system.

Read the complete story.

Despite Coleman-Franken fallout, Pawlenty scotched election reform

If vetoes are like slapshot goals in hockey, then Gov. Tim Pawlenty scored an election-reform hat trick last week. After vetoing motor-voter and felon-notification, he scotched the state Legislature’s big omnibus elections bill.

The measure included provisions drawn from at least eight separate bills, from an earlier primary date to absentee-ballot streamlining. While the bill was  not everything reformers had sought — no early voting, for instance — it would have made dozens of improvements to the current system.

All fell to Pawlenty’s veto pen because the bill didn’t meet Republicans’ demand for new photo-ID requirements.

Read more..

It's time for a full report on election issues

We hope Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto of an elections bill on Friday will be the beginning, not the end, of a full review of Minnesota's election law and the lessons of the U.S. Senate recount fight.

Read more...

First, reform voter registration

If the Great Election Recount of 2008-09 has proven anything, it is that the very legitimacy of our democracy rests on the integrity of our voting system.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty had an opportunity to sign into law several crucial election improvements that would have eliminated many of the sources of error and confusion we’ve witnessed in the U.S. Senate election recount. Yet the governor chose on Thursday to veto House File 1053, which would have authorized a critical improvement in our voter registration system.

Modernizing and automating voter registration is crucial. A national survey last fall found that more election problems resulted from voter registration mistakes than from any other cause.

Read more...