Yes, Hillary was here twice, including the Election Eve, and Bill came once for a rally. Hillary did a great gig up on the Iron Range in mid October. Howard Dean showed up a couple of times. Tester was here, Dorgan, and Barbara Boxer — and there were others. Before he got sick, Ted Kennedy was here for Franken.

Let me fill in a little about the Minnesota Recount. Yes, what you are seeing now is adjustments in the numbers as they were recorded on Tuesday in the in-precinct scanners. We have about 4400 precincts in the state, thus 4400 scanners — all ballots in the state are laid out in the same design (by law the design must be tested), and under normal circumstances the scanners are the most accurate mass counting method available. Hennepin County has, for the past ten years, had the lowest error rate for large metro areas using this system in the US, First in the top 49 Metro areas. But no system is perfect, thus our State Law considers a Recount by hand a normal part of any election if the margin between two candidates is less than .05. We will, for instance, be recounting three legislative races that show from the preliminary count, margins of less than 100 votes between candidates.

The Process of the Recount is all in State Law in great detail. We became rather famous in 1962-63 when we had a five month recount of a Governor’s race — Elmer Anderson v. Karl Rolvaag, and after having argued the issue in courts for six weeks, they finally settled down to a real recount, and didn’t finish up till March. From Jan 1 till mid March we just had two Governor’s, one in the formal offices, and another in the basement of the Capitol in a temp office. The one in the Basement ultimately won by about 123 votes, with a total of 17 ballots that no one could agree on the intent of the voters. Anyhow, that process led the Legislature to consult widely, and then write a very clear recount law dealing with every possible contingency, and then when we redesigned the elections system in the late 1980’s, the Recount Law was simply made part of the system. It is also well tested in the courts, because local units of government frequently have recounts — and any important court ruling goes into the state codes in the next legislative session. That is how you keep the loud lawyers and courts out of your soup — you have clear law.

Because a recount is mandated if the margin is less than .05 (and in the Franken-Coleman race that would be about 16,000 votes) just think of what we are doing as a continuation of counting the ballots. What will happen is that in each of the 88 counties a public counting facility will be set up, teams of counters will be recruited — many will be trained poll workers, others may be party volunteers, and each precinct will be counted by hand by a team of two representing opposite parties. They will sort the ballots into piles, Franken, Coleman, Barkley, Other, no apparent vote, markings outside of the norm. They will count each pile, with each counter writing the number on a talley card. A Clerk will compare the two cards, if they agree, then they agree. If they don’t agree, the piles go to another team for another count. Markings outside the norm — well we have state laws to guide us in interpreting the intent of the voter. Voter circled name and didn’t fill in oval — vote counts. voter made light check mark in oval not picked up by machine — vote counts. Voter drew funny face on ballot — doesn’t count. Such intrepretations of intent of voter can be appealed to the county canvas board if the counter’s don’t agree — and their ruling can be appealed to the State Canvas Board chaired by the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court. All this is done in public, lawyers and candidate reps can watch it all, but if they appeal, it has to be in writing. It won’t look anything like Florida — it will rather be more like a sunday night potluck in your local Lutheran Church.

Yesterday, Norm Coleman jumped the gun and announced that Tom Hefflefinger, the former USAttorney who was on Bush’s firing list probably because he did not go along with an effort to disenfranchise students voting at their college residence, would be his legal rep for the recount. A couple of hours later Hefflefinger took himself off the case. Make of it what you will, he is also chair of the commission reviewing the security arrangements at the Republican Convention, and didn’t think he could take both jobs. Personally, I don’t think he wants to work for Norm in this case. The Recount will be in 88 locations (some very small counties) so they will need 88 candidate representatives, not one big name guy.

Will Franken pull it out? Well, I hope so, but most of all I really believe our system is very good, and in the end will produce an accurate result. My guess is it will be wrapped up before Xmas.

Any more questions — want to know more about that Anderson/Rolvaag recount? Just ask.

Al Franken’s campaign was a disaster. Even if he gets lucky on the recount, that fact does not change.

Fortunately, Mark Ritchie is Secretary of State. He’s a great guy. No Katherine Harris here.

Unsnarkily, I would love to see a timeline of his comments on Palin since the RNC convention. We know BoBo turned against her pretty early. And Kristol?