Minnesota’s still undecided senate race became a bit more dramatic Wednesday as the campaign of incumbent Republican candidate Norm Coleman objected to the way Minneapolis election officials have accounted for 133 ballots from a precinct that have been missing for a week.

Coleman’s campaign does not want the state canvassing board, the panel overseeing the recount between Coleman and Democrat Al Franken, to count the 133 ballots or use Election Day totals from the precinct in the overall recount. The precinct tallied 2,029 votes on Election Day. Coleman’s campaign said the canvassing board should use the vote tally from the hand recount, which is 1,896.

Franken would gain 46 net votes if the canvassing board uses the 2,029 vote total the Minneapolis precinct logged on Election Day.

The ballots, which were inside a sealed envelope, disappeared last week. Local election officials spent three days searching for the ballots but their efforts were unsuccessful. They called off their search Monday.

Coleman’s campaign attorney, Fritz Knaak, sent a letter to the Elections Director of the City of Minneapolis stating that the results of the hand recount only should be turned over to the canvassing board. Knaak said the precinct does not have the legal authority to cite the Election Day totals. Moreover, Knaak said there is no evidence that the 133 ballots even exist.

“The legal hand recount totals for Minneapolis Ward 3, Precinct 1 must be submitted to the Minnesota State Canvassing Board,” Knaak’s letter said. “…The purpose of an administrative recount under Minnesota law is to simply count the ballots located and presented to the local election official. Precedent in Minnesota law [requires] the results of a hand recount to be utilized over the results of a machine recount in cases such as these. There simply is no basis upon which to conclude with any certainty that the machine did not malfunction.”

The precinct this week turned over two sets of figures: vote tallies from the hand recount and vote tallies from Election Day.

Marc Elias, Franken’s lead recount attorney, said he would respond to Knaak with a legal brief later Wednesday to the state canvassing board that says Knaak’s legal interpretation is wrong. Elias said legal precedent will demonstrate that the vote totals from Election Day can be used during the recount.

It’s likely the canvassing board will use the Election Day totals, which is what state election officials have done under similar circumstances during past elections.

Meanwhile, the canvassing board is scheduled to meet Friday to take up another issue: absentee ballots that Franken’s campaign says were wrongfully rejected and should be counted.

In advance of that meeting, Franken’s campaign posted a video on YouTube that contains testimonials from eight voters who said they voted for Franken and had their ballots wrongfully rejected by state election officials. The campaign has also spun off a website where officials have been urging Minnesota voters whose ballots were rejected to tell their stories.

“In the closest Senate race in Minnesota history, every vote should be counted fairly,” begins the introduction to the. “But there are Minnesotans who had their votes thrown out, even though they did nothing wrong. They voted absentee, but their ballots were improperly rejected because of someone else’s mistake. And in the closest Senate race in Minnesota history, their votes remain uncounted.”

Franken’s campaign claims there are 1,000 cases of absentee ballots that were improperly rejected and has been pressing the canvassing board to include them in the recount, believing the ballots would give the former Saturday Night Live writer and comedian a healthy lead over Coleman.

The sorting of rejected absentee ballots began Monday. The ballots are being sorted into five piles. Four of those piles represent ballots that were rejected for legitimate reasons under state law. A fifth pile will contain ballots that were improperly discarded. The sorting is being conducted voluntarily by local election officials to provide the state canvassing board with an estimate of the number of absentee ballots that were mistakenly rejected because of an administrative error. The secretary of state’s office has asked local election officials to finish by Dec. 18 and report their findings back to the office.
 
But Ramsey County Elections Manager Joe Mansky has balked at having election officials in the county sort through the absentee ballots to determine how many were rejected improperly. He said he consulted with a county attorney and concluded that state law doesn’t require such a move-whether they were wrongfully rejected or not-into separate piles. Mansky said, “We probably need some direction from a court.”

Coleman’s campaign agreed.
 
In a letter sent to Ritchie last Friday, Knaak said. “We strongly believe that the requested activities, to be undertaken at taxpayer expense, are wholly outside of the jurisdictional scope of an administrative recount but, instead, constitute initial discovery steps in an election contest.”
 
Elias said it appears that a half-dozen or so other counties have consulted with attorneys and have followed suit leaving the Franken campaign “deeply” concerned, Elias said.

“Let me be clear, an absentee ballot that was not rejected for one of the four legal reasons is nothing more than an uncounted ballot,” Elias said during a news conference. “It is deeply concerning that some counties are refusing to determine whether they have uncounted ballots among their previously rejected absentee ballots.”

Coleman’s campaign said it’s clear that the video Franken’s campaign produced and signals that the Democrat is gearing up for a court battle once the canvassing board certifies the results of the recount later this month.

“While our campaign remains focused on the recount, it’s clear the Franken campaign is more interested in court challenges, U.S. Senate intervention and making new commercials attacking local election officials,” said Mark Drake, a spokesman Coleman’s campaign. “We’ve said from the beginning of this process that the Franken campaign was laying the groundwork to ignore the results of the recount, and today’s new ad demonstrates that is exactly what they are doing.”

But Franken campaign spokesman Andy Barr said Franken is simply trying to make sure every vote is counted.

“It boggles my mind that Norm Coleman would be OK with allowing Minnesotans to be disenfranchised when they did nothing wrong,” Barr said during a conference call with reporters Wednesday. “These are not just numbers. These are not just ballots. These are not just tally marks. These are people.”

The recount in the closely watched contest ended Friday with Coleman leading Franken by 687 votes. State election officials tallied 1,208,344 votes for Coleman and 1,207,657 votes for Franken, according to unofficial results posted Friday by Ritchie’s office.

The recount results tabulated by Ritchie do not take into consideration thousands of ballots both campaigns have challenged. Franken and Coleman withdrew a combined 1,280 ballot challenges, where each candidate says voter intent is unclear, out of 6,655 ballots where red flags were raised. Both campaigns are expected to withdraw additional challenged ballots.
 
Franken’s campaign, however, asserts that their candidate leads Coleman by 4 votes. Their methodology includes thousands of challenged ballots, where both campaigns claim voter intent is unclear, and the assumption that the votes on those ballots will be upheld by the state canvassing board. Coleman has challenged more ballots than Franken.
 
Franken’s campaign has withdrawn 1,058 challenged ballots and Coleman’s campaign withdrew 1,125. But there are still more than 4,000 challenged ballots the canvassing board must contend with.
 
The state canvassing board will meet Dec. 16 to review the remaining challenged ballots and decide voter intent.
 
In a separate development, the St. Paul Pioneer-Press reported that federal investigators that a longtime Coleman associate tried to “steer money” Coleman.

“Federal investigators are looking into allegations that a longtime friend and benefactor tried to steer money to U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman,” the Pioneer-Press reported. “Agents with the FBI have talked to or made efforts to talk to people in Texas familiar with the allegations, according to a source familiar with the situation.

“Houston is where the first of two lawsuits was filed alleging Nasser Kazeminy, a Bloomington financier, tried to steer $100,000 to Coleman via his wife’s Minneapolis employer. The second suit, filed in Delaware, alleges Kazeminy initially tried to get money directly to the senator. The lawsuits, filed in the week prior to the Nov. 4 election, surround a Houston-based oil-drilling maintenance company known as Deep Marine, which is controlled by Kazeminy.

“They allege a host of improprieties, including that Kazeminy tried improperly to send Deep Marine money Coleman’s way for no legitimate reason. Both Coleman and Kazeminy have denied any wrongdoing, and Coleman last month said he welcomes an investigation.”