Franken victory gives Obama boost in Senate!

Recount Day 238: Coleman quits; Goshdarnit Al Franken's a senator

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled 5-0 today that Democrat Al Franken won the 2.9 million vote Senate election there by a landslide 312 votes. Al Franken has defeated incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman in the race to fill Minnesota's second U.S. Senate seat. The victory comes months after voters cast their ballots and arrives in the form of a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling. In a 5-0 decision, the court ruled in favor of Franken, who has battled to unseat Coleman ever since a slim victory on election night was cast into doubt by a series of drawn out recount claims and voter irregularity allegations.


More than 2.9 million Minnesotans voted in the November general election, including approximately 300,000 absentee ballots. The first unofficial tally gave Coleman a 206 vote victory. However, under state law, such a slim majority must be manually recounted. Included in the recount were several hundred absentee ballots as well as ballots disputed by Coleman's lawyers. The tally from a recount gave Franken a 225 vote majority and an upset win.

"the trial court did not err when it included in the final election tally the election day returns of a precinct in which some ballots were lost before the manual recount. After a trial, the three-judge trial court we appointed to hear the election contest issued its findings of fact, conclusions of law, and order for judgment, concluding that Franken received 312 more legally cast votes than Coleman... Because we conclude that appellants have not shown that the trial court's findings of fact are clearly erroneous or that the court committed an error of law or abused its discretion, we affirm"

It is unknown if Coleman will appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, or if he will concede, allowing the state to seat a second senator after several months of vacancy.