Ritchie biggest loser in court decision on ballot titles

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that the decision of Secretary of State Mark Ritchie did not have the authority to substitute his ballot titles for the Minnesota Marriage and Photo ID amendments for those supplied by the state legislature.

Ritchie changed the title for the marriage ban from "Recognition of Marriage Solely Between One Man and One Woman" to "Limiting the Status of Marriage to Opposite Sex Couples." He rewrote the photo ID title from "Photo Identification Required for Voting" to "Changes to In-Person & Absentee Voting & Voter Registration; Provisional Ballots." 

The biggest loser in this case is Secretary of State Ritchie.  His actions trying to bias the amendment titles was rejected.  His credibility also took a hit.  The Secretary of State is responsible for overseeing our voting system.  That's a critically important, nonpartisan, impartial role.  Yet he clearly attempted to use his office to bias the outcome of the ballot questions. 

His public statement regarding the Court's decision retained a degree of self justification. 

As for Ritchie, he issued a brief statement saying in part: "I thank the Supreme Court for its prompt action on this legal challenge to the law first passed by the state Legislature in 1919, affirmed in 1981, directing the secretary of state to title proposed constitutional amendments." He urged voters to read the complete text of the proposed amendments on his office's website.

 This certainly will be an issue if he chooses to run for re-election in 2014.

It should be noted that Attorney General Lori Swanson was also supportive of his activities when she signed off on his title language changes.

The Coleman-Franken campaign continues on with challenged ballots and rejected absentee ballots at issue.

The campaign between Norm Coleman and Al Franken didn't end on Election Day. In fact, they've spent upwards of $4 million since then seeking to insure their interests aren't ignored in the recount process.

The major media groups say Coleman has a 192 vote lead while Franken camp claims he holds a 4 vote lead if all the election judge decisions on challenged ballots are upheld.

Remaining issues evolve around what to do with the 133 supposedly missing ballots in Minneapolis, how to handle challenges and what to do about improperly rejected absentee ballots.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie went out of his way to be involved in the missing ballots issue. He dispatched one of his assistants to help look for the ballots. Ritchie then said if they weren't found they would likely go with the count on Election Day, which begs the question, why count them if the reason for the recount is to insure that votes were properly counted. Initially, Minneapolis' campaign official, who is a democrat, thought the number discrepancy was due to absentee ballots improperly run through the voting machines. Franken campaign objected and then they changed their tune.

Regarding the handling of challenges, it's up in the air whether a majority of the canvassing board will rule on rejected ballots by majority or unanimous votes.

And finally, there's the question of improperly rejected absentee ballots. There are four criteria in state law for which absentee ballots can be rejected. Apparently, there were a number of absentee ballots rejected for some other reason. The Canvassing Board initially ruled it didn't have the authority to include them in the recount, but will revisit the issue this Friday.

The Franken campaign has been most concerned about the absentee ballots being rejected improperly. It will be interesting to hear their position if they are ahead by a few votes after all the challenged ballots are considered. Will they still demand that they be included? I would doubt it.

It seems to me that improperly rejected absentee ballots should be reconsidered. Or if they weren't properly rejected why wouldn't they be included? That seems to clearly be a case of disenfranchisement. (Some argue that Franken would benefit by more absentees being considered while others say it would benefit Coleman more because historically Republicans are more likely to vote by absentee ballot than Democrats.)

Hopefully, this will all end sooner rather than later and the final result will not be in doubt.

Be careful what you say in public, especially if you're a political figure

It happened to former Majority Leader Dean Johnson who was caught on tape saying things he later regretted about supposed conversations he had with Minnesota Supreme Court justices.

Well, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie during a television interview said the Coleman campaign was "willing to win [the election recount] at any price." Later, when asked at a press conference about his comment, he said he never said that. Unfortunately for him, both of his comments are on tape. Captured, of course, by the Republican Party. It's now on You Tube.

You can go here to see it.

Ritchie actually said he wanted to depoliticize the Minnesota Secretary of State's office?

The mainstream media has picked up on the story that Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie wasn't totally forthright in his denials regarding how his campaign got the list of individuals and organizations gathered through the Secretary of State's office. The list was comprised of organizations and individuals brought together to increase voter turnout. Individuals in attendance ended up getting a political fundraising letter from Ritchie.

Previously, Ritchie had denied knowing how the campaign got the list. He now insists that it solicited contributions only to pay for the newsletter itself. But its text invites recipients to an upcoming campaign fundraiser.

However, it turns out he personally gave the list to the campaign.

Ritchie said Tuesday that he personally provided a copy of the directory to his campaign and requested that those on the list get a copy of his campaign's civic engagement newsletter, which is distributed to about 12,000 individuals and groups whom he described as active in civic life in the state.

It also reminds people that Ritchie said when campaigning he wanted to depoliticize the office of secretary of state.

Ritchie, a DFLer, was elected on a platform of de-politicizing the office, which supervises elections.

Frankly, Ritchie was and is viewed as a highly partisan, liberal activist. He headed up a liberal environmental group prior to running for the secretary of state position.