Mistakes Were Made, and Every Valid Vote Must Count
Statement
Mistakes Were Made, and Every Valid Vote Must Count
Minnesota's recount was the most careful in the history of the country. Independent election officials in more than a hundred recount locations around the state, under enormous scrutiny, hand-inspected more than 2.9 million ballots.
Hundreds of local election officials worked tirelessly to make sure every ballot was counted fairly.
During the hand-count, both campaigns deployed thousands of observers who often exercised the right to challenge the local election official's ruling.
Each campaign brought those challenges to the state canvasing board seeking yet another examination of hundreds of ballots.
This panel of some of Minnesota's most respected jurists re-examined 1,337 ballots and toiled for four days to ensure that each and every vote was counted fairly. Some ballots were even examined more than once.
All of the board's major decisions were unanimous, consistent with Minnesota laws, and ignored any partisanship that sometimes plagues similar proceedings in other states.
Much has been said about improperly rejected absentee ballots, an issue my team originally raised on Nov. 12. At that time, and ever since, we maintained that the vast majority of the 12,000 rejected absentee ballots were properly rejected by local election officials. But we fought hard to get those that were improperly rejected counted, and in another tribute to the determination of Minnesotans to do what is right, they were.
In fact, despite rigorous resistance from the other side, the Minnesota Supreme Court ultimately ordered any improperly rejected ballots to be counted as part of the recount.
Local election officials and the two campaigns once again screened thousands of ballots over again and those ballots deemed valid were counted by officials from the Secretary of State's office.
The brilliance of our system here is that each of the stages was completely public. I believe transparency breeds accuracy and fairness.
Every recount table was administered in the public eye, every state canvassing board meeting and decision was aired under the media spotlight, and every court hearing open to the public and broadcast across the State.
There were no secret meetings, no behind-closed-doors negotiations just Minnesota's public servants working hard to ensure whoever received more votes on Election Day was declared the winner.
And on Jan. 5, the state canvassing board issued a certificate declaring that I received the highest number of votes in the election.
We should all be proud of our state, and we should all be grateful for the incredible hard work and dedication of all of our election officials.
Norm Coleman is exercising his right to contest the results of the election, and I respect that.
But I also believe at the end of the day the court will stand by the scrupulous work done by Minnesotans in the largest recount in Senate history.
Local and state election officials have endured cruel criticism of their work one has even been falsely accused of storing ballots in the trunk of her car.
The attacks on their work are not fair, have not worked thus far, and won't overturn the results of the election.
While Minnesotans have been counting, canvassing, recounting, inspecting, and certifying, the challenges facing our country have grown larger. With new job cuts announced nearly every day, foreclosure rates still climbing, and middle class families being squeezed harder than ever, it's clear that we have a lot of important work to do, especially here in Minnesota.
So needless to say, I am eager to get to work. At a time when our economy needs a dramatic boost, President Obama needs partners in the U.S. Senate to get it done.
There is no one better to work double-duty than Sen. Klobuchar, and she deserves tremendous credit for being Minnesota's lone voice in the Senate right now, but to ensure that Minnesota gets its fair share from the federal government, I believe we need two U.S. senators in Washington as soon as possible.
A few weeks ago I traveled to Washington with my family for President Obama's Inaugural address. Millions of Americans gathered on the National Mall to bear witness to a future of change, hope, and a new direction.
President Obama announced that it is time to get to work on the daunting challenges facing our country, and as your senator-elect, I am ready to do just that.
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