Both Candidates Declare Victory in Minnesota Recount

December 5, 2008, 1:31 p.m.
By Conrad Wilson
Special to Roll Call

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Updated: 6:22 p.m.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — With the recount between Sen. Norm Coleman (R) and comedian Al Franken (D) all but finished, both campaigns on Friday declared that they were ahead going into the next phase of the recount.

Now the attention is turning to the whopping 6,600-plus ballots that the two campaigns are challenging and that will most likely determine the outcome of the election.

The final gasps of the hand recount have also increased the tensions between the two campaigns. The Franken camp completed the day by sending an e-mail that stated: “Franken holds a 4 vote lead over Coleman as hand count ends.”

The Coleman campaign issued a statement from campaign manager Cullen Sheehan: “While we are pleased that we remain ahead in this recount, we want to give our thanks and appreciation for all Minnesota’s local election officials for their commitment to a fair, legal and transparent process.”

Local news organizations reported on Friday that Coleman was leading by 192 votes, but that does not include one Minneapolis precinct that is reportedly missing 133 ballots. The recount in that precinct will remain open until the ballots are found.

The report of the missing ballots created a flurry of activity between the secretary of state’s office and the Franken and Coleman camps. During a search Friday in a Minneapolis warehouse for the ballots, workers found a plastic bag with about a dozen uncounted, overseas absentee ballots. It is not clear if the ballots will be counted. The hunt for the missing 133 ballots will continue in other locations on Monday.

Minneapolis Elections Director Cindy Reichert said she couldn’t find the missing ballots, which had originally been counted on Election Day. Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (D) ruled to keep the recount open in the precinct until the ballots were found and sent Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann to help find the ballots and act as an official witness.

“These ballots must be found,” Franken’s lead recount attorney, Marc Elias, said in a statement. “The outcome of this election is at stake. But let me be clear: The integrity of this election is also at stake, as is the integrity of Minnesota’s electoral process. We won’t stand for the disenfranchisement of 133 Minnesota voters, and neither will the people of this state. Find the ballots.”

Coleman’s campaign said this should not become a partisan matter and accused the secretary of state’s office of biased treatment towards the Franken campaign.

“I think any time you leave a precinct open indefinitely, you raise the possibility, the suggestion of mischief,” Fritz Knaak, Coleman’s lead recount attorney, warned during a news conference with reporters.

He also raised concerns over the conduct by the secretary of state’s office over the missing ballots and asked officials there to take a step back from the process. Knaak expressed disappointment over the office’s decision to review so-called “legally rejected” absentee ballots without Ritchie’s consent.

On Friday, the Franken campaign sent a memo to all 87 counties in Minnesota urging them to count improperly rejected absentee ballots. However, the Canvassing Board is scheduled to hold a meeting on what to do about improperly rejected absentee ballots on Dec. 12. Ritchie has estimated that 500 to 1,000 improperly rejected ballots exist.

Local news organizations, which are updating precincts’ Election Day totals once the recount figures are available, show Coleman with a 192-vote lead — a drop from Thursday, when Coleman started the day with a 316-vote spread over Franken.

While the numbers remain murky and speculation builds over who will come out ahead by the end of the epic process, the more than 6,600 challenged ballots are taking a prominent role in the recount. It is clear that the election will be decided by the Canvassing Board, composed of Ritchie and four judges, some of whom were appointed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R).

The Canvassing Board will review all the challenged ballots starting on Dec. 16 in hopes of reaching some consensus on ballots where the voter’s intent is difficult to determine. But elections officials believe that many of the candidates’ challenges to some of the ballots are frivolous, and the Canvassing Board has asked both campaigns to withdraw thousands of them.

The Franken campaign has said it will withdraw 633 challenges, while the Coleman campaign has said it will be withdrawing 650. The two campaigns are expected to meet ahead of the Dec. 16 board meeting, to further whittle down the total number of challenges.

An original version of this article can be read at RollCall.com by clicking here.re.

Minnesota Recount to End Friday, But Race Still in Doubt

December 4, 2008, 3:08 p.m.
By Conrad Wilson
Special to Roll Call

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MINNEAPOLIS — Two weeks after it started, the recount in the Minnesota Senate race between Sen. Norm Coleman (R) and comedian Al Franken (D) is scheduled to be completed by the end of the day on Friday — but the race is far from resolved. Based on thousands of challenged ballots, it appears likely that the State Canvassing Board will have to determine the outcome of the contested election.

With more than 97 percent of vote recounted, Franken leads Coleman by more than 11,000 votes, according to the secretary of state’s office. However, the campaigns have collectively challenged 6,326 ballots — and many of those challenges are considered frivolous.

Several heavily Republican counties only recently began their recounts, meaning that Franken’s lead should drop. While the official recount shows Franken far ahead of Coleman, several news organizations show Coleman with a 316-vote lead, which many experts consider a more accurate count. The secretary of state’s office started the recount with both candidates at zero, while local news organizations have merely updated the recount totals as they have come in from each county, altering them based on the counties’ original Election Day totals.

While much of the recount process has been complicated, one thing is clear: No one will know the outcome of the election until all of Minnesota’s 87 counties complete the hand recount and the State Canvassing Board determines the disposition of the thousands of challenged ballots.

The secretary of state’s office has asked both campaigns to limit the number of challenged ballots as one estimate said it would take at least a month to go through and rule on them.

The Nov. 4 election came down to 215 votes in Coleman’s favor, triggering an automatic statewide hand recount. But throughout the recount, Coleman’s lead has fluctuated.

Also during the recount, uncounted ballots have surfaced, most recently on Tuesday in a Twin Cities suburban precinct. A ballot safe that broke and was replaced on Election Day, contained 171 ballots that gave Franken a 37-vote boost. Election officials determined they had not been tampered with, only that they had been forgotten.

On Tuesday, the secretary of state’s office asked election officials to study — but not count — thousands of rejected absentee ballots. Minnesota state law gives four reasons for rejecting absentee ballots. The office requested that ballots that did not fit into one of the four criteria be separated into a fifth group.

During a meeting of the State Canvassing Board this week, Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie estimated that there are from 500 to 1,000 improperly rejected absentee ballots.

The Franken campaign, which has attempted to show a few examples of voters whose ballots were improperly rejected, considered the decision a victory. The Franken campaign has lobbied the State Canvassing Board to count improperly rejected absentee ballots as votes. The review of the rejected ballots is scheduled to be competed Dec. 18.

The State Canvassing Board is scheduled to begin reviewing contested ballots on Dec. 16.

If state officials are unable to declare a winner, the election could wind up in court — or in the Senate. The 111th Congress is due to be sworn in Jan. 6.

You can read the original version at RollCall.com by clicking here.

Coleman: Franken Wants Senate to Resolve Election

November 19, 2008
By Conrad Wilson
Special to Roll Call

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ST. PAUL, Minn. — With a statewide recount set to begin today in the contentious and razor-thin contest between Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and comedian Al Franken (D), Coleman’s campaign on Tuesday accused Franken of trying to delay the recount in hopes that the Democratic-controlled Senate would eventually vote Franken into the contested seat.

A Coleman campaign lawyer called the Franken team’s attempts to prevent the race from being officially called on Tuesday “horseplay” designed to throw the election into the Senate. If Minnesota authorities are unable to resolve the election, it is possible that the Senate may be asked to determine a winner.

“I think that to be honest this is for an audience outside the state of Minnesota,” said Fritz Knaak, the Coleman lawyer. “That we’re basically set up here for a Senate contest inside the United States Senate. It’s the only plausible explanation I can come up with for this horseplay.”

The Franken campaign angrily denied the suggestion.

“The entire team’s strategy is to let this process work out,” said Marc Elias, a Washington, D.C.-based Democratic election lawyer working for the Franken campaign. “And to have confidence that as we go forward ... to make sure every vote is counted.”

The Coleman campaign maintains the Senator won the election by 215 votes, while the Franken campaign said the race starts over today tied “zero-zero, with 2.9 million to go.”

The accusations came following a vote Tuesday by the Minnesota Election Canvassing Board to begin the recount. The board also said it would consider a request by the Franken campaign to include some rejected absentee ballots.

A statewide, mandatory hand recount is scheduled to begin today to determine the winner of the most expensive Senate race in the country. While Minnesota’s 87 counties can decide when to begin their recount, they must be completed by Dec. 5.

The race came down to a mere 215 votes out of some 2.9 million ballots cast, a difference of .007 percent. Minnesota election law requires a recount in races closer than one-half of 1 percent.

The recount has gained national attention because it could put Democrats in the Senate closer to the 60 votes they need to break a filibuster. Ballots are still being counted in the Alaska Senate race, and a Georgia runoff has been scheduled for Dec. 2.

Both campaigns praised the canvassing board’s decision to move forward with a recount.

“We’re very pleased with what happened today,” Knaak said.

Franken spokesman Andy Barr said the Democrat “has good reason to be thrilled about today’s outcome.”

Minutes before the state canvassing board was scheduled to meet, the Franken campaign asked the board to postpone finalizing the count until all the precincts were accounted for. The request followed a legal brief the campaign filed Monday to the board, requesting that rejected absentee ballots be considered in the recount.

David Lillehaug, a lawyer for the Franken campaign and a former U.S. attorney, asked the board to prevent the certification of the original Nov. 4 vote, ahead of the recount.

“These people are real people who did everything right,” Lillehaug said of the absentee voters whose ballots weren’t counted. “Can’t we all agree they should not have to start a lawsuit or wait for someone else to start a lawsuit for their vote to count?”

In some cases absentee ballots were rejected. The Franken campaign has filed suit to get access to those ballots and the reasons they were rejected by local election officials. A court hearing on some of the absentee ballots is scheduled for this morning in Ramsey County, roughly 90 minutes after the recount starts.

Coleman campaign attorneys Knaak and Tony Trimble, who also appeared before the canvassing board, said the Franken campaign tactics cast doubt on a process that worked.

“We are absolutely in agreement with the Franken campaign that we want a full, fair recount of — at least I hope they want a full, fair recount — of every vote that was actually, properly cast,” Knaak said. “If they weren’t properly cast for some reason then they don’t deserve to be recounted.”

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (D), who is chairman of the recount board, has been attacked by Republicans who question his objectivity. Ritchie has insisted that he, and the full canvassing board, which is also composed of two state Supreme Court justices and two county district judges, has been completely impartial during the process.

Ahead of the recount, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) defended the board’s work on “Fox News Sunday.”

“In Minnesota we have a history of clear, transparent, accurate and fair and legal elections. That’s going to happen again here,” Pawlenty said. “The canvassing board is five people. They are invited by the secretary of state, not appointed by me. The governor doesn’t have a role. But it’s four judges, all of which have good reputations, and the secretary of state.”

The article can also be ready by clicking here.

Reunited Somali families stranded after crackdowns

Feds making family reunions not so sweet

By Conrad Wilson
November 19, 2008
City Pages

Amal Hassan sits quietly in an old office chair in a dark, abandoned cubicle at Catholic Charities in downtown St. Paul. Her face is framed by a finely stitched hijab that is her porthole to the world, and what a world Hassan has seen: Born in Mogadishu, Somalia, she has spent most of her life as a refugee, believing both of her parents were shot and killed during the civil war that lingers to this day.

In 1991, when Hassan was three years old, she left Mogadishu for Nairobi with her grandmother and two siblings. They took up residence in a one-room government apartment with no bed nor running water. By 2004, they secured passage into the United States, via Atlanta, where they lived with an uncle for several months before moving to the Twin Cities.

"It was just like heaven," she says of coming to America. "In my mind I knew this was the place where we were going to have a better life and achieve our goals."

And then, last November, something even more amazing happened: Hassan learned that her mother was still alive.

It happened when she was shopping in the produce section of Cub Foods. She ran into family friends who had just arrived home from Nairobi. They told her that they has seen Hassan's mother there.

"At first I couldn't believe it," Hassan recalls. "I ran to the lady and said, 'What? How can this happen? How?'"

Hassan's grandmother traveled back to Nairobi to see if it was true. It was. Filled with hope, Hassan set about the tedious bureaucratic task of bringing her mother to the United States.

"I've been calling her and I've been telling her that I'm trying my best for the process," Hassan says. "I'm still waiting. The law is not in my hands so I've just got to wait."

A recent decision by the U.S. State Department may keep Hassan and her mother waiting for the foreseeable future.

Hassan's mother would be eligible to come into the country under a P3 visa, part of a family-reunification program. Since the late 1970s, when it was created to help Vietnamese refugees bring family members to the United States, the P3 visa has reconnected thousands of families. The program allows an "anchor relative"—a family member already legally living in the United States—to apply to have nuclear family members join them, with the hope of maintaining bonds between parents and children, brothers and sisters.

Since 2003, the main beneficiaries of the P3 visa have been Africans, 35,000 of whom have gained entrance with the visa. Not all of them, it turns out, were legal. Last spring, a State Department investigation discovered widespread fraud within the program: People were claiming strangers as relatives for up to $10,000 a head.

In response, the State Department cracked down, adding a DNA test requirement to prove that family members are related.

"We had heard there was some fraud in the program, so what we wanted to do was check it out and make sure the law was being observed," says Todd Pierce, a spokesperson with the Bureau of Populations, Refugees, and Migration at the U.S. State Department. "This is the first time we've used DNA testing as a way to substantiate the results, and we found a very high fraud rate."

While the program is well intended, the sudden change and the lack of communication have thrown legitimate refugees into chaos.

While the effects of the decision have been felt throughout many of the nation's African immigrant communities, nowhere has that been more pronounced than here in the Twin Cities, home the United States' greatest concentration of Somalis, estimated to number 60,000. Catholic Charities in St. Paul, a local refugee resettlement organization, says the decision has affected nearly 1,600 people who were hoping to immigrate to the area. Since March, only one person has arrived from Africa to the Twin Cities, while nationwide estimates are in the low hundreds. Last year Catholic Charities helped resettle between roughly 50 and 135 people to the Twin Cities each month.

Sadiyo Ismali, also from Mogadishu, has lived here with her husband since 2004 and now has a daughter. Her mother and six siblings were supposed to arrive in the Twin Cities last July, but like many of the thousands of refugees, Ismali's family was delayed pending a DNA test.

For three months, Ismali waited to find out when and where to take her DNA test. Finally, in September, she received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security about where to take her DNA test. She took the test on October 2, but has not yet heard the results. Ismali's family overseas already took their DNA tests, which confirmed that all the refugees were at least related to each other.

"It makes me feel sad, so sad. Even I cannot explain to you the way I feel about the DNA test because so many people are hoping for their family," Ismali says. "There are some people that haven't seen their parents for 20 years, 30 years now. They're waiting for the DNA."

For resettlement organizations like Catholic Charities, the DNA test requirement has created a whole new set of problems. For one, there is a cultural difference to overcome: In many African countries, the notion of family is more elastic, and many refugees may be caring for children orphaned by war.

"In Somali cultures, during the war they might grab a child from the street or a neighboring child and raise that child, that they call a son or a daughter," says Ibrahim Mohamed, a case manager with Catholic Charities in St. Paul who came to the U.S. as a refugee. "In the other parts of the culture...the first cousins are called brothers and sisters."

Mary Anne Sullivan, senior director for Catholic Charities in St. Paul, says she's frustrated by the sudden change in policy. Neither the State Department nor any other government agency communicated anything about the recent policy change, she says. "There was no official word. We just heard of it through anchor relatives who were told that by their relatives in East Africa."

A State Department official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, says the lack of communication was intentional so as to not tip off the fraudsters who were the target of the crackdown.

It could take up to six months to get the DNA test fully integrated into the refugee-immigration process, according to the State Department's timeline. For Hassan, that means she will have to wait longer before her mother can come to the United States. It's been a year, and she is no closer to seeing her mother.

"Just because they have found some false info about the DNA, they shouldn't be holding the whole thing," says Hassan. "They should be looking at each person, each case differently and what the situation is and contact people right away and tell them how it's going and give us feedback. So far it has been four months and I haven't heard from anybody. I mean, it's crazy. You kind of think, 'Hey what's going on? Are they not thinking of us?'"

*This article was published as a news story in City Pages during the week of November 19, 2008. You can read it by clicking here.

Ditching disposable plastic bags for longer lasting, reusable alternatives is a growing trend throughout America's retail stores. But as many environmental groups are quickly discovering, reusable plastic bags, while intended for good, can actually be more damaging to the environment than their flimsy prototypes. Made to be durable, these bag have an even longer lasting impact on the environment.

The controversy over plastic bag use has raged globally for at least five years, as both corporations and city government try to be more environmentally conscious.

Last year, San Francisco was the first U.S. city to ban the use of throwaway plastic bags. Since then Boston; Phoenix, Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas; and a handful of other cities are weighing similar ordinances.

Earlier this month, U.S. based Ikea stores stopped offering 'use and toss' plastic bags at the register. Whole Foods Stores did the same back in April.

One nuanced approach is unfolding in Seattle, where customers could end up paying a 20 cent fee for every bag they take from the check out line; similar to the approach used by some retail stores. In 2003, a bag fee dropped Ireland's disposable plastic bag rate 90 percent.

When consumers reuse the more durable bags as intended, they keep hundreds of disposable ones out of landfills. Each consumer uses between three and five hundred disposable plastic bags every year amounting to an estimated 100 billion in United States. Part of the solution to reducing 'use and toss' bag use, lies in changing consumer behavior and mentality.

To listen to this click here.

The Ocean Between

By Conrad Wilson

October 16, 2008

For years DNA testing has played an increasing role in the United State's immigration process. But a decision by the State Department last spring to incorporate the testing into a family reunification program, has virtually halted the arrival of thousands from several African countries. These refugees come from war torn homes to reunite with family members already in the United States. Refugees do so through a visa program aimed at bringing families together.

The State Department's DNA test is a method to insure that family members who claim to be related share the same DNA. It started as a pilot program in Kenya and confirmed what some State Department officials suspected for years: many individuals who claimed to be related did not share the same DNA. Even worse were reports that the visas were being sold on the black market for upwards of $10,000.

The widespread fraud led the State Department to suspend the resettlement program in Kenya and Ethopia in March, and expanded the suspension to Ugnda, Ghana, Guinea, Gamiba and the Ivory Cost in May.

While the effects of the decision have been felt throughout many of the nation's African immigrant communities, nowhere has that been more pronounced than in the Twin Cities, home the United State's greatest concentration of Somali and other East African refugees. Since March, the local branch of Catholic Charities (the resettlement organization that works with refugees in the Twin Cities) has only processed one individual.

This NPR style, investigative/explanatory piece includes interviews with both refugee and government sources.

Click here to listen to this report where stations can also purchase a license.

Brazil: The future of biofuel in Minnesota?

Ethanol may be king in these energy-strapped time

By Conrad Wilson
City Pages - July 16, 2008

On a recent drive from his farm in Blue Earth County to St. Paul, Kevin Paap passed eight filling stations with an E85 fuel pump. Just two years ago, less than half of those pumps were up and running.

Paap, a corn and soybean farmer, heads the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation and has advocated for the expansion of E85 across Minnesota and beyond. "You're probably going to see more E85 here—availability and infrastructure—than you would in a lot of states," Paap says.

With record oil prices, lawmakers decreeing the use of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022, and calls for energy independence on the lips of the presidential candidates of both parties, ethanol seems destined to play a significant role in the nation's future.

There's just one problem: Nationwide, ethanol pumps are relatively scarce, available at just 1,505 of the 170,000 gas stations coast to coast. And six states, including New Jersey and Massachusetts, lack them entirely. (Minnesota leads the country in E85 pumps, with 339.)

While increasing the availability of E85 is no simple task, the answer may be in Brazil, where ethanol is readily available at filling stations, giving consumers a convenient alternative to petroleum.

"The consumer obviously loved it," says Morgan Perkins, director of the Agriculture Trade Office in São Paulo. "You go to the gas station and you look and see which is cheaper and you fill up with the cheaper fuel."

The idea of creating an alternative fuel source in Brazil began during the energy crunch of the 1970s, with the Pro-Alcohol ("Pro-Alcool") Policy. The program aimed to decrease dependence on foreign oil.

At the time, prices for sugar were low, so converting it to fuel provided a cheap alternative. The government built and paid for a distribution network to expand the use of ethanol and kept the cost of the biofuel affordable to attract customers. During the late 1970s the Brazilian government subsidized as much as 75 percent of the cost for constructing distilleries. Later, the government also created tax incentives for ethanol-powered cars. By the early 1990s, nearly all the passenger cars in Brazil were powered by sugarcane-based ethanol.

But then came several years of poor sugarcane crops, which resulted in fuel shortages. "People would have to sit in line, three, four hours at the gas station to get a really expensive tank of [ethanol]," Perkins says. "The consumer basically lost confidence in alcohol-powered cars."

The revival of the Brazilian ethanol industry occurred in 2004, with the innovation of "flex fuel" vehicles, which run on either ethanol or gasoline. The U.S. Agriculture Trade Office in São Paulo forecast 4.5 billion gallons of domestic ethanol use in Brazil this year, an increase of more than 750,000 gallons over last year.

Efforts in the U.S. to copy the Brazilian ethanol model are still taking root, with the Midwest taking the lead. As part of the energy legislation signed by President Bush in December, Sen. Amy Klobuchar pushed to expand the use of E85. She inserted provisions for grants to gas stations for installing E85 and biodiesel fuel pumps, while also preventing oil companies from blocking and controlling the sale of the fuels at franchised stations.

"This is still in its infancy," says Klobuchar. "You need to have the actual ethanol biofuels, then you need to have the pumps so people can get it."

With the federal government mandating an increase in the use of ethanol, it is now requiring other states to do what Minnesota has done on its own, says Gene Hugoson, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. "It ensured that we had a supply for the market and a market for the supply," Hugoson says. "In other states they have been making a product, but they haven't necessarily had a market."

Yet critics argue that subsidies have no place in an industry that rakes in billions annually. Ethanol is subsidized to the tune of $6 billion a year, or 60 times greater than the subsidies for gasoline, says David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell University. "I'm not for any subsidies, but that is way out of line and that's what's encouraging this tremendous rush to produce ethanol," Pimentel says. "If ethanol is so great, why are we subsidizing it?"

In 2006, the Brazilian Association of Vehicle Manufactures estimated that roughly 14 percent of all cars on the road could run on ethanol. That number is expected to increase to 33 percent by 2010. Compare that to the United States, where slightly more than 2 percent of vehicles can actually run on E85.

"The flex-fuel cars started in the U.S., but the U.S. has a small flex-fuel fleet, [and has] no distribution of competitive ethanol," says Marcos Sawaya Jank, president of UNICA, Brazil's sugarcane industry union. "So people have flex-fuel cars, but they don't have the fuel to use."

For now, the U.S. market is stuck in a classic catch-22: Automobile manufacturers say they would make more flex-fuel cars if there were more stations with ethanol pumps, while gas station owners say they'd add more ethanol pumps if there were more flex-fuel cars to use them.

"It becomes a situation that unless the United States does something similar to Brazil, and more or less requires that [cars] be outfitted or equipped to handle a flexible fuel, I'm not sure that it's really going to [happen]," Hugoson says. "It may get there, but it's going to take a long time."

Travel for this story was made possible with a grant from the Minnesota Newspaper Foundation.

*This article was published in the July 16, 2008 edition of City Pages. It can be read by clicking here.