THE FACTS ABOUT MARK RITCHIE

Ritchie Backed By Left-Wing, Soros Sponsored Secretary Of State Project. “This entire process is being overseen by Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who isn't exactly a nonpartisan observer. One of Mr. Ritchie's financial supporters during his 2006 run for office was a 527 group called the Secretary of State Project, which was co-founded by James Rucker, who came from MoveOn.org. The group says it is devoted to putting Democrats in jobs where they can ‘p rotect elections.’” (Editorial, “Mischief In Minnesota?” Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2008; Katherine Kersten, “Recount Referee: Will His Resume Color The Result?” Star Tribune, November 12, 2008)

Ritchie Is ACORN Ally. “Mr. Ritchie is also an ally of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, of fraudulent voter-registration fame. That relationship might explain why prior to the election Mr. Ritchie waved off evidence of thousands of irregularities on Minnesota voter rolls, claiming that accusations of fraud were nothing more than ‘desperateness’ from Republicans.”(Editorial, “Mischief In Minnesota?” Wall Street Jou rnal, November 12, 2008)

Ritchie Attacks Coleman Campaign For Trying To “Win At Any Price.” “Asked about the Coleman campaign's criticism of the recanvassing process, Ritchie said: ‘Their goal is to win at any price. They’ve invested millions and millions of dollars. We consider this part of the normal political rhetoric,’ said Ritchie. ‘We're used to the political rhetoric being amped up. That’s part of their job — to win at any price.’” (“MN Secretary Of State: Coleman's Goal ‘To Win At Any P rice,’" Politico.com, November 12, 2008)

Ritchie Adamantly Opposed Including Any Rejected Absentee Ballots In Recount. “Democrat Al Franken, locked in a tight Senate race headed to a statewide recount, sued Thursday for access to data on voters who had their absentee ballots rejected. … On Wednesday, Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said a voter with a rejected ballot or a campaign would have to go to court to contest the election for such a remedy — a process he said would fall outside the rec ount and canvass process." (Brian Bakst, “Franken Seeks Access To Rejected Absentee Data,” Associated Press, November 14, 2008)

Ritchie: “Those Rejected Ballots Would Be Handled By A Court.” “Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said Thursday that the state would not consider rejected absentee ballots as it begins the recount of the 2.9 million votes cast in last week's election. ‘Recount law is very specific about what is included,’ Ritchie said. ‘Under current law, those rejected ballots would be handled by a court.’”
(Patricia Lopez, “Battle Of The Ballot Takes A New Twist,” Star Tribune, November 14, 2008)

Attorney General Opinion Requested By Ritchie Precluded Inclusion Of Any Rejected Absentee Ballots In Recount. “The Franken campaign filed a brief Monday asking the Canvassing Board to consider including improperly rejected absentee ballots in today's official tally. Granting that request would make it practically impossible to proceed to the recount on Wednesday. However, the state attorney general's office later issued a three-page opinion requested by Ritchie that said the board 's job today is purely administrative, not to determine the eligibility of a voter or whether absentee ballots were properly accepted.”
(Kevin Duchschere, Mike Kaszuba & Mark Brunswick, “Franken Asks To Have Rejected Absentee Ballots Be Considered,” Star Tribune, November 18, 2008)

Franken Supporter & Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman Proposed Plan To Count Rejected Absentee Ballots. “Also Tuesday, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman proposed a process for reconsidering rejected absentee ballots that would partly skirt the Canvassing Board: Have local elections officials review such ballots and identify those possibly improperly rejected. Freeman, a DFLer who backed Franken, said that he and Anoka County Attorney Bob Johnson worked on the plan after Secr etary of State Mark Ritchie asked them and other county attorneys for ideas to improve the process.”
(Kevin Duchschere, “Lost, Found And Challenged,” Star Tribune, November 26, 2008)

Ritchie & Canvassing Board Unanimously Turned Down Franken Request To Include Rejected Absentees In Recount. “Democrat Al Franken suffered a setback Wednesday when the state Canvassing Board unanimously turned down his campaign's request to include rejected absentee ballots in the U.S. Senate recount, prompting a Franken attorney to threaten to go all the way to Washington if necessary to get them considered.”
(Kevin Duchschere & Bob Von Sternberg, “Franken Loses Bid To Add Ballots,” Star Tribune, November 27, 2008)

Taking Freeman’s Advice, Ritchie Asked Counties To Create A Fifth Pile. “In a separate development, [Deputy Secretary of State Jim] Gelbmann asked counties to prepare five piles of rejected absentee ballots, categorized by each of the four statutory reasons for rejecting an absentee ballot and a fifth pile that the canvassing board could rule on next week. … The fifth category may be improperly rejected votes, which the Franken campaign believes total about 1,000 statewide and wants included in the recount. Gelbmann asked counties not to begin separating the rejected ballots until Monday. At this time, we are not asking you to open or count the votes contained in any of the five categories of rejected absentee ballots,’ he wrote. ‘We are simply looking for the number of rejected absentee ballots that were legitimately rejected ... and the number of rejected absentee ballots that were mistakenly rejected.’”
(Jason Hoppin, Rachel E. Stassen-Berger & Maryjo Webster, “As End Of Recount Looms, Previously Lost Ballots From Maplewood Help Franken,” Pioneer Press, December 2, 2008)

Following New Opinion From Attorney General, Ritchie & Canvassing Board Issued Recommendation That “Fifth Pile” Ballots Should Be Counted During Recount. “The Canvassing Board received an opinion on Friday from Attorney General Lori Swanson saying that these ballots can be counted as part of the statewide recount. … Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who chairs the board, said it is the unanimous recommendation of the board that counties reopen their counts ‘to correct these obvious errors and submit corrections to the Canvassing Board.’ He added: ‘Those are errors that can be fixed.’”(Editorial, “Reviewing The Tape,” Pioneer Press, December 13, 2008)

Editorial: Ritchie Responsible For “Mess” Regarding Election Officials’ Lack Of Training. “Except for a few extreme partisans, I think most Minnesotans want to be sure that all legal votes are counted. However, I doubt now that we will ever know if that happened. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, as the chief election officer of the state, is responsible for the mess along with a number of county auditors and city election officials. Part of Ritchie's job is to train the county audito rs, and in the larger cities the city clerk or chief election officials, how to conduct a fair election. It's the job of those he trains to then teach the election judges their duties. It's clear that as teachers, Ritchie and some others are lacking.” (Editorial, “After The Recount, The Secretary Of State Has Some Explaining To Do,” Morrison County Record, January 16, 2009)

Ritchie Failed To Demand Uniformity Of Absentee Ballots. “In one of the Supreme Court rulings, it was decided that only the rejected ballots upon which the two campaigns agreed should be included in the recount. However, the campaigns have no special standing in this recount; it's the people's will and the integrity of the voting process that is in question. If Franken or Coleman objected to including a ballot, then the judgement of local officials, who had already a cknowledged 1,346 mistakes, was allowed to stand. That the Secretary of State did not step in and ask the Supreme Court for statewide uniformity in determining whether ballots were wrongly rejected, reflects poorly on his leadership.”(Editorial, “After The Recount, The Secretary Of State Has Some Explaining To Do,” Morrison County Record, January 16, 2009)

Board Was Inconsistent In Treatment Of Ballots. “In other cases, the board has been flagrantly inconsistent. Last month, Mr. Franken's campaign charged that one Hennepin County (Minneapolis) precinct had ‘lost’ 133 votes, since the hand recount showed fewer ballots than machine votes recorded on Election Night. Though there is no proof to this missing vote charge -- officials may have accidentally run the ballots through the machine twice on Election Night -- the Can vassing Board chose to go with the Election Night total, rather than the actual number of ballots in the recount. That decision gave Mr. Franken a gain of 46 votes. Meanwhile, a Ramsey County precinct ended up with 177 more ballots than there were recorded votes on Election Night. In that case, the board decided to go with the extra ballots, rather than the Election Night total, even though the county is now showing more ballots than voters in the precinct. This gave Mr. Franken a net gain of 37 votes, whi ch means he's benefited both ways from the board's inconsistency.”(Editorial, “Funny Business in Minnesota,” Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2009)

Supreme Court Justice And Canvassing Board Members Says It Is A “Dead Solid Certainty” That Some Votes Were Counted Twice. “Justice G. Barry Anderson said he thought it ‘a dead solid certainty’ that double votes were counted, but added he was uncertain that the board had the authority to do what Trimble asked.”(Kevin Duchschere, “Coleman’s Lead Over Franken Shrivels,” Star Tribune, December 19, 2008)

Canvassing Board Applied Inconsistent Standards To Ballots. “Both campaigns have also suggested that Mr. Ritchie's office made mistakes in tabulating votes that had been challenged by either of the campaigns. And the Canvassing Board appears to have applied inconsistent standards in how it decided some of these challenged votes -- in ways that, again on net, have favored Mr. Franken.”
(Editorial, “Funny Business in Minnesota,” Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2009)

Ritchie Sent Out A Slew Of “Recount Update” Emails To Supporters With A Link Provided For Donations. “Minnesota's Senate race is headed into the next stage - the State Canvassing Board. For an update on some of the latest info - watch this CBS News report. For the latest public opinion on the race and the recount check out Survey USA - KSTP's new poll.” (Mark Ritchie 2010 Email, December 10, 2008)

“Dec. 30. 9 a.m. SENATE RECOUNT — State Canvassing Baord [sic] convenes to approve allocation of remaining withdrawn ballots in the U.S. Senate race. A live feed will be provided through ‘The Uptake.’ To access the live feed, contact [e-mail redacted].”(Associated Press “Daybook,” Accessed December 30, 2008)

After Lying, Ritchie Finally Admitted Providing State Lists To His Campaign. “Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie now says that he personally gave his campaign a list of participants in a state-sponsored ‘civic engagement’ program so it could send them a campaign newsletter that asked for a political contribution. Ritchie, a DFLer, was elected on a platform of de-politicizing the office, which supervises elections. He has been under fire since two Republican a ctivists who attended the office's publicly funded event filed a complaint over having their e-mail addresses turned over to Ritchie's political operation. Previously, Ritchie had denied knowing how the campaign got the list. He now insists that it solicited contributions only to pay for the newsletter itself. But its text invites recipients to an upcoming campaign fundraiser.”(Mark Brunswick, “Ritchie Now Says He Gave E-Mail List To Campaign,” Star Tribune, November 21, 2007)