of 2008, 2009. 55 weeks, 2.9 million votes, $20 million just spent on the recount alone, another 40 million on the campaigns of a total of $60 million to become the 60th senator. you know, it's often been casually said, and as i've been doing this book promotional tour everyone always asks wasn't franken out lawyer, that sort of the way people talk about it, and he did have a band of barristers is what i call them, they are led from washington, d.c. and kevin hamilton from seattle and david from the twin cities and norm coleman had his own downfall of lawyers who were minnesota based except for the well-known election law ben ginsburg who spoke as the spokesman and had been george bush's meen spokesperson during the 2000 florida recount.

the was a victory for 2008 was not. but i think to broadly attribute the franken victory to the mere lawyering ann gates factors and his women. one was early in overall preparing for it. number two was the collection and analysis of the data that he collected. number three was fund raising and number four was rapid response to the defense that occurred. the new yorker i got lucky last week had a brief review of my book and they wrote, he wrote, she wrote the one that decided it more one and that is the similarity between the florida every count but i also think there were other forces out there. one was the side that wanted more had lost 80 years earlier in florida and was trying to get back at that and also the memory of paul wellstone was around this weekend as all. senator coleman had beaten wellstone and specific's

political inspiration was paul wellstone is what was it just lawyering, there was a lot of stuff happening that drove this recount. and while this is not florida, that is the name of the book, is an insight fly on the wall looking to recount with particular emphasis on how franken's team performed i think it does detail a template for the future recounts will be conducted. i'm hoping no matter what side they are on people will read it as they do their recounts in two weeks or two years. that's all that was in the context of a really wide range of election laws and procedures from state to state, so even though we here in minnesota 13 count and thought of as tedious and complicated and how all these players and most of these weeks there are different recount laws in every state, and so as we get our crystal ball and see whether the recounts are going to happen don't think that what occurred in minnesota will be recreated elsewhere. for instance, nevada is now a battle ground. harry reid, challenger sharron

angle there is no mandatory recount. matter how close it is the loser has to seek a recount and has to decide to before it and if they win the state pays for it so there isn't like ours, half of 1% and its instant. and no matter what the triggering method, the modern recount is a sort of campaign overtime in extra innings, and it operates on these levels of legal and technological, political pr fund-raising and certain amount of social networking. it seems like only yesterday that it was 2008, but the twitter world was not really that robust in 2008. youtube was and franken's joost youtube effectively to find and use absentee ballots, people who cast absentee ballots in order to show that their vote hadn't counted and was a sympathetic youtube video.

coleman's use youtube to see of their voters had been rejected or not. fortunately we now have a new system from the securities office so all of us can check that at a neutral site, but even in 2008 technology was used in you to be sure any recount this year will have super amounts of technology to fight of voters and for the voters to see where they stand. as all of those elements i just mentioned i would like to talk about each of those in describing how franken on this and every by 312 votes out of about 2.9 million cast. and in that i want to talk about some moments of truth for me, either during the week of period from november 2nd of 08 to july 2nd of 09 or in the back reporting that i did subsequent to franken's if swearing in. there were moments of truth to realize the franken forces were generally on top of their game and the coleman site was frequently not. i spoke of about 40 players in the recount after franken was sworn in. of all the key players, everyone

spoke to me except for senator coleman and ben ginsburg, so lawyers on both sides, campaign managers on both sides, political operatives on both sides stayed calm and so i feel that i tried my best to be fair and balanced. and by the way, between november come to those in need and july, 2009i was probably at just about every news conference. i missed two or three days of the canvassing board that is an administrative board and i missed one day of the trial so i should get some battle pay of some sort. so let's start with the preparation and the motivation. it's back in the summer of 2018 franken's campaign is going sideways a little bit for allegations for he didn't pay his taxes. it isn't totally true that the digging up of old drug and former drug use and senator coleman's former drug use and a general disarray felt part of his campaign. and he hadn't won the endorsement yet from the dfl

democratic party. stephanie was brought into the campaign manager and right the ship, and she is not a secret person because i write about her a lot, but a lot of people don't realize the impact she had on this campaign to turn things around. and pretty much by then, by the summer of 2008, mark a linus, who is an election expert in washington, had been engaged by the franken campaign, not necessarily for the recount franken's lawyer, a lawyer for almost all the democratic senators and all the candidates and his law firm, perkins -cooey represented the democratic senatorial campaign committee and barack obama. his mentor, bob the hours is now the white house council on and one of the young lawyers to work on the council office so these people are well connected. and clearly october, he had hired dave, the former he was

attorney of minnesota to nail down a full throated recount plan. that was done about october 12th, october 15th. swedes three full weeks but we are not just talking about thinking about, we are talking about a plan. in the first hours of election night, and these are in the wee our stores a conference call on it became clear there was going to be a recount, kevin hamilton, who is a seattle-based in the law firm, on the phone and he told everybody study absentee ballots, look at absentee ballots, people we screw up, particularly democrats. they are released will be voters. [laughter] and kevin had worked on the recount in 2004 where the absentee ballots were an issue. the other thing about hamilton is that from the moment he landed in minneapolis, which would have been like the 11th of november, he was thinking about the trial. she's a trial attorney, and just keep that in mind when you realize that the coleman legal team and its lead trial lawyer was in high gear until about three days before the first scheduled meeting on that trial

in january, and the was joe friedberg who is a great lawyer in town, well known, nice man but wouldn't have known and election law if he tripped over it in january and suddenly he had to represent senator franken against who had experience and was planning for two months for this thing. also on these calls was a man named chris sauder who was a well-known person and is arguably the most experienced and well trained trainer of volunteers of recounts and she is a recount technician. in the book i call him the karni of recount people because he goes first from state fair to state fair, recount to recount and he doesn't operate the ferris wheel but he operates the recount. so that team was in place early on, and they brought about 30 recounts confetti statewide recounts in their amo. it remains unclear exactly how close been ginsburg was involved

in the recount early on. people tell me he was on call. i know he came here to the twin cities soon afterwards, at least once. but in the early stages of became clear the coleman side believed local lawyers should do it for p.r. reasons and they felt comfortable and also senator coleman felt he was going to win, and i think that's one of the false that people who are going to face the recount next week or two weeks should deal with if you are ahead do not assume you're going to win. these things to flip. they don't flip often. some people think more times the last 20 years have statewide recounts left in the united states, but they can have a particularly with 215 votes. and neither of senator coleman's tough lawyers had been involved in a citywide recount. they had done other recounts, but not statewide. tony trumbull, again, a very nice fellow, a graduate of william mitchell school law, and

tony is a mitchell grabbed, he told me in the back reporting that to prepare for the franken-coleman free count, he dusted off, and those are the words he used, from the u.s. house recount of david and mark of 2,000, the was a we count that drew little attention and little firepower from the author of the political parties because it happened in 2000 and florida was under way at the nation's eyes were there and ginsburg and souder were in florida. also didn't have the machinery that the senate recount how like the board and there wasn't an issue of absentee ballots. it wasn't even as close as this. so you get the relief picture. not only was the carmer staff of and engaged, but there was a spirit the bitter taste of florida, there was a certain revenge. the democrats wanted to come in here, she was the 16th seed, he was al franken and the wellstone spirit was hanging over that as

norm coleman is kind of the symbol of that. so now that we move on to the phase of the technology and attention to detail that helps the franken recount recommitting this is where souder comes in as the recount a veteran. he literally wrote the book on it, called the recount primer, depending what part of the country you are from, he wrote it with some other franken and it lays out how you're supposed to recount. and chris is very committed to this notion of the call at the table. when i talk about the call of the table and talking about regular votes, the for the absentee ballots come in and the votes go into the voting machines and we have the hand recount, the regular ballots are counted by hand, all 2.9 million of them and if you recall it was crazy, it started november 90, 110 locations, 87 counties, 4,100 foodie precincts, nutty. so after election night, coleman is ahead by about 100 or so but when the dust settles and the

precincts come in and matters are corrected and the normal organic shaking out of the votes ochres that happens in every election, we just don't know about it, she's up by 215 when the recount starts. and ally es through chris sauder, through the karni of the recounts, tells the volunteers and they have thousands of volunteers, to make sure record the call up the table. what do i mean by a call at the table? this is the back of the book and i know you can't see it, but some ballots franken christoff people write and i want him any way, but here both franken and coleman and the locals are filled but he or she has no next to norm coleman and then we have the lizard people vote. [laughter] we have bret favre and the flying spaghetti monsters and all those people. [laughter] when the votes are recounted there are volunteers of the table and they can challenge these votes of the voter intent

seen no it doesn't look like it's for norm coleman, it doesn't look like it's for franken. ultimately the voters stuff is determined by the state canvassing board down the road at, it would be in this case, to come to supreme court justices, to district court justices, the secretary of state. but in the trenches it's the two parties that challenge the ballots, local officials, average hard-working, well-meaning people say, you know, i think the voter was for coleman or for franken and the franken site had this theory based on sauder's experience that the call with the table by experienced election officials are generally correct. there's no reason to disbelieve that when mrs. jones or mr. smith says no, i am sorry that intent was for coleman the der making a porch eating or anything. they're just good, hard-working honest minnesota officials. it's kind of like the nfl is what mark alias and i say, you need industry evidence to overturn a challenge. and in most cases, just keep

track of what's going on at the table. so, with that in mind, the franken team set up these virtual offices that went out to every counting place. 106 sites and the employed with the call a pony express to get all their data back to headquarters in st. paul as quickly as possible. early on the lawyers from out of town said what don't we get all the ballots, schaenman, turn them into pds, send them over a broadband from worthington or dilute and the line of peterson is in franken's office and said okay, guys, there is no broadband in this county area. we can't just shoot up 2.9 million votes chest like that. [laughter] thus, the pony express came about, and i won't read it, but there was a guy on the franken campaign named dusty trice, and he was enlisted to assemble these 106 self-contained many offices in white cardboard offices, each had a printed

laptop, cellphone a modem, to cell phones, pens, staplers, clipboards each with template sheets that chris sauder devised a good record every move and every vote. some supplies were hanging from the just-completed campaign but trice told me we went to 15 office max's and what every clipboard in the city and trice recount assembled more than 300 boxes each 20 pounds, the filled 312 by 12-foot offices, wrote 6 feet high in trucks the were granted and they were distributed in the voting places or counting places and sauder said he had never seen a recount that well done and he told that to franken and franken whenever he made fund-raising calls told steven spielberg and barbra streisand and all those people were really well-organized. [laughter] so, that was the foundation of finding out where they stood on day today, and the importance of that is as they see if you don't know where you stand you don't know where your going to come

and if you didn't know that you kind of catching up a little bit you might have other strategies. they were already working on site strategy of the absentee ballot. but the coleman team was not as exacting and their people told me that. early on, the sort of didn't keep track of the call of the table. people were not told to keep track of the call of the table. the didn't have the feel they had the exact idea and in the but you will see the different key players thought they were ahead, felt they were behind, he didn't know. the campaign managing lawyers had two different ideas where they stood. then all the ballots would return to st. paul on the dusty trice pony express and that is on the would-be pds and tied by technological people, and you wouldn't know if those were the lots that were crossed off or were not crossed off so when the canvassing board can about, the alias could keep a consistent notion what notes were being challenged and accepted and is that canvassing board would forget or not be consistent the could pointed out and in the and

chief justice magnuson kept his own cheat sheet and he did a good job on his own. what they were finding the was when you're behind by 215 and there is 2.9 million votes, it's not that hard for a thing to swing if you think that it's =to and have votes that count. and so its dew, out. now of course sadr coleman will find votes. early on they both lost votes because there was over counting 14 barkley the third candidate got more than they thought. but the irony is this attention to detail got the franken people crazy because the secretary of state and the news media wasn't keeping track of it in the same way and with the secretary state's office was doing and in the news media we were picking up was the challenge to balad, not accounted valid and if you take the challenge ballett out of the account you don't know where the count stands and if the coleman team is challenging more balanced and the alias it might mean franken is picking up less votes. in the and the challenge to many

the got out of hand. in any event, there was a discrepancy between what the franken team began to feel with the new and what was being reported out in the news media, which led to a story in the star tribune, a former employe year. in the last weekend of november, that said with a big honking chart that seemed to be officials at franken couldn't win. it's impossible for him to win. and this chart -- you know those charts you have on a map that shows how far you are from indianapolis or kansas city, that's the way the chart was. i couldn't figure it out. well, the problem was that there were these dueling news conferences between mark alias of the franken team and fritz of the coleman team, and they were trying to score points in washington and to fund raising, and marked great connections to the washington blockers, fritz did not. and the other problem was the

obama administration was forming. there was a lot of excitement. the economy was in the tank. rich people had given their money to these candidates. there was a lot of campaign fatigue. franken was on the phone for six hours a day to raise money. that was his full-time job and now the state's largest newspaper was saying he can't win. so the franken people went bonkers because they just thought nobody is going to give us money if we are going to lose and there were getting calls from the hitters in washington like chuck schumer and harry reid saying we should pull the plug. this forced alias that they were catching up. they didn't want to tell people that get. and this created one of the memorable moments of the recount and was a snowy saturday, we are now leave in should recount, it's december and the board is already begun to meet in the absentee ballot is started to get queued up and it's like one

of those mary tyler moore shows where it's snowing and it's going sideways and the windows are frosted and there's only two reporters that showed up, rachel was the with the pioneer press and i to read we both live near the headquarters and alias and andy word just as proud as could be they were having a news conference on saturday during a blizzard for days or five days before christmas. i don't know why they thought that way. [laughter] and alias, who is just a great character of a guy who jingle's change in his pockets and just is a superstitious a big guy that moves his arms around like this all the time and he had been saying we are down by to come up by two, down by 2014 and we'll just said this gaudy ase nutty. he said al franken will have more votes than norm coleman when the board meets next week. we believe firmly that margin will be between 35 and 50. at some point not long after

that al franken will stand before you as the cemetery liked from minnesota. so he declared that on december 20 of and i'm sure that rachel and i shook our heads and there was a conference call but i don't think anybody was on the conference call. i didn't even know the storch uncovered that and he was filled with confidence he was just smog about it and this was the culmination of the hiring of chris sauder's rules of the technology being done of the pony express. they felt they were ahead by 35 for a 50. three days later the board met and he was up by 46 and then a couple of more and he was up by 49 come and alias joked then he was glad it wasn't 51 because people wouldn't have trusted his numbers. [laughter] but for me it was a moment of truth of i think i should listen to mark alias because he might be right, and the coleman team said we don't know where these numbers are coming from, and the

was another revelation of really to the franken side of the coleman really didn't know where these numbers are coming from, and then gave them a boost. and in the absentee ballot issue heated up. and i fink we saw another key moment at least for me as a minnesota and and really one of the big surprises of the recount for both side, and it had to do with fairness. there were two guys i think to man who stood for that and one was chief justice mad destin and then was mark ritchie, secretary of state, and i don't see this because i like either of the more know either of the more care about either of them but they just did sort of the right thing. magnuson had been appointed by tim pawlenty, he was a law partner and republican chief justice. and in the end he sided with franken's effort to get the wrong we rejected absentee ballots in the count. it was something that turned the

republicans absolutely livid because they thought that eric magnuson would side with them. the outside lawyers from both teams felt this would be just like the east coast with the west coast that the minnesota courts, because they are appointed by tim pawlenty would be republican, that mark ritchie because he's arguably the most left-wing official on the state would be for the democrats, and then they would slug of the doubt that laurie swanson is the attorney general would be this way or that week. it didn't turn out that way at all and in fact the democrats started liking mark ritchie because he thought there been an over backward for the republicans and they were looking at erik isn't saying what are you giving we need to shut this down. and in the end, you know there's talk now since richie is running for secretary of state that he's 15e elections on how. they looked at the board and the administrative board before the trial, they looked at 1500 challenged ballots and the board split three through code 2114 of

the 1500 ritchie sided with the left-wing judges seven times and the right leaning judges seven times and marc rich is in the book and told me what effort tiberi anderson who is the republican justice voted he voted because he was to keeping track. whatever he says is fine with me so they agreed 96% of the time, these five people who are different and appointed by different people were elected. in some ways i think these -- one of the bigger surprises for minnesota is that these people just kind of did the straight and narrow. what we tell you about another surprise i'm pretty sure wasn't written about before the book and that is the role of the obama campaign and the franken campaign, and the rule was they didn't have any and that is one reason people think franken lost the first time around or that franken didn't get the margin he should have. he certainly lost from the amount of the votes barack obama did by 12 percentage points.

obama wins by 54% and franken by 42% and that is a huge gap. maybe it was franken's baggage and maybe it was obama's understanding he was going to win the state. but he got that 54% and franken got 42% and people who know say that if obama would have spent an hour of the twin cities report on the sunday or monday before the election or had gone to dilute in particular for an hour they sent hillary clinton instead on the monday before the election that would have created 2,000 votes, it probably would have created 2,000 votes and we wouldn't be here today. that's really all you needed to read but it didn't happen. in fact, jeff, who is a campaign professional was paul wellstone's manager was obama's state campaign manager and he was really, really disturbed the didn't allow any literature that had franken and obama on the same piece of paper so jeff went a little will get the indiana created one of those door

hanging signs you get in the last couple of days and it had both faces and the chicago people never saw that. [laughter] but it hurt, and turnout was less because there was the anticipation obama was going to win. we still have the highest turnout in the country of 70%, but jeff was seeking 80% and those two percentage points probably up in the range and the congressional eighth congressional district would have made the difference. however, you know obama's impact was felt and the list for the absentee ballot there was a tremendous absentee ballot effort on the part of the obama campaign led by jeff and we did have the largest absentee ballot numbers in history, 293,000 absentee ballots, so about 10% of our voting, and the cradle of the kerf awful of what is a good balad and people have questions how things have changed this election i can answer them afterwards but people to the cut

things changed for the better in on doing the mistakes in the controversy is 2008. but i want to fast-forward to the trial because it took so much time even though i think in the and it wasn't all that important because franken already one of the canvassing board and the trial was an effort by senator coleman to catch up and he was playing offense in the end if you recall he started the trial up to 25 and ended -- excuse me, coleman starts behind by 225 and when it's over he's behind by 312 so the charnel that was his idea wind up causing him 87 votes because of franken's effort to get votes. and again, franken's team ms. moore prepare and data center. the kept track of absentee voters and of course there's a lot at stake. he was going to be the 60th senator reid it would be a filibuster proof. the health care matter was coming up as were other things and there was a lot of state for

both sides. and this leads to the most dramatic to me and erie and touching exchange of the whole recount but also shows the extent to which the franken side was willing to go to get a vote and it involves kevin hamilton who is his lawyer from seattle examining joe who is the key election officials, and i'd think i might read some of this if people don't mind because it does -- is like a perry mason kind of law and order type of thing. exhibit at 20 to 32 lived in a category by itself. the exhibit was the absentee ballot of donelson newscast october 29, 6 days before the election. in his polite way as he could come hamilton performed a noticeably monotone direct examination of lansky exactly what the exchange was so sober was evident. mr. simmons properly completed the absentee ballot application form.

yes, hamilton asked, yes, means the city and completed the absentee ballot the signatures match, mad dress match, yes. now, mr. simmons, he was probably a registered voter of the time he cast the ballot, was seen off, hamilton asked. mansky paused, he looked at his documents. kimmel and repeated it to you know he was properly registered voter? mansky took his time and said i don't know that. the reason i say that as i looked at the voting record here. he his deceased status. we don't know is since this was printed recently if he was eligible on election day so they didn't know it donald simmons was alive or not on election day what do we need to figure out, hamilton asked mansky, with the need to figure out is that as long as you're a life at some point on election day you're balad account. this is not chicago -- [laughter] and mansky says yes, that's what we need to figure out. and hamilton repeats so we need

to figure now is the time or the date of his death. yes. so, that exchange is over, hamilton goes to the next exhibit but the members of the franken staff are watching the trial on the uptick, the c-span of follicle with the psychedelic c-span in the book, but it's a computerized tv channel, and they quickly run over to the headquarters to the department of health and st. paul, look for donald simmons death certificate and lunchtime we are back in court. mansky is back on the stand and hamilton offers exhibit f3007 into evidence, and it's simmons just acquired death certificate and hamilton shows it to mansky. what we step back. donald simmons was 65, african-american, he had liver cancer peabody came to minnesota to get a transplant. his children were here. he really wanted to vote for

obama. he loved jazz, his wife is a nice person. they moved from springfield massachusetts to be near their kids. the alias in the absentee ballot count his name subpoena at to him and mrs. simmons called back and said you know, he's dead. they still pursued it, the alias mr. mansky, hamilton says, is this the same individual we were discussing before the break? that is correct, mansky says. can you read the name and death of the voter? the name is donald simmons, the tough at november 27, 2008, speed said. so he was the light on election day, hamilton said, his vote should count against the eight said yes. three weeks later when the judges come to the absentee ballots, donald simmons vote was counted. he was one of the 312, so it's pretty -- that is what organization is and determination.

most of you know i'm not really a political pungent but i'm kind of a recovering sports writer and i stumbled into the story. i had no idea about elections or recounts but exports there are personalities and politics and that was sort of why i felt it felt like i was back in the sports world to read a lot of guys, that's for sure. there were a lot of errors and big plays. the hamilton-simmons moment was a big play. there were offenses and defensive errors, there were accounts of the table. but this really was in a game and this wasn't for a trophy and for minnesota it was about a statewide identity because we are a state the tories how people think about us and we have this complex of how we are doing to the rest of the world of leads to the title that is called this is not florida and i grew from an exchange between

robert to magnuson paul anderson and the new yorker also said we have a lot of andersons in minnesota. there are two major magnuson and anderson's, and it drove me crazy, too. [laughter] anyway, magnuson is a very respected lawyer, both thai kind of guy and his politics conserved. i met him when he represented the twins and tried to get out of their lease of the dome in 1990 so i knew him in that realm as well and he had been one of george bush's lawyers and for money before the florida senate and he had won the case before the florida samet that spun into the area of the supreme court could shot of the we count down, and roger kind of swaggered up to the lectern before the minnesota state supreme court on an issue of whether to stop the absentee ballots from being counted or not. that was the basic issue and that's what he wanted and senator coleman wanted to have done and you could feel the judge's move up in their seats because he's respected and they

thought this is going to be pretty good show and he said may i please the court on december 12th the state canvassing board with the best of intentions accepted an invitation we believe to go to florida, and as tempting as the invitation is, given the weather outside the courtroom today, and then he was interrupted by paul anderson. just as anderson promised himself that he wouldn't ask any questions for five minutes if you know just as interesting that's very hard for him to do. and it took about 37 seconds. and he was really mad and he said counsel, i know you've been to florida. this is not florida and i am not terribly receptive to you telling us we're going to florida comparing to that. this is minnesota, we have a case in minnesota, argue the case in minnesota. that really set the tone for the rest of the recount. this is only for late december and established the fact we were

going to do it on our own. so i feel any candidate who visas a recount this cycle should think about preparation and data, think about the rapid response, should think about the idiosyncracies of the state he or she is in and if you add that all of it might lead to victory, but you do need the votes and they are there or they are not. thanks for coming. [applause] any questions? >> understand why franken 13 count -- i anderson and franken won the account but i am curious why he won the election because you mentioned two things, rumors of drug use, not paying taxes which was true. his sexist ridings which ultimately led amy klobuchar not

to endorse him and didier held off for quite a long time and then the charges of corporate banking he hadn't lived in minnesota for 30 years and came back, established residency camano elective office experience, yet he was able to beat someone who by all means have been a pretty good senator, a very good mayor of st. paul. was it because he was identified with bush, is that why you think he -- because there were some pretty big garbage he had to overcome. >> sure. first of all the was 42, 42, 16 so it was close. second, the recount is the elections if you win the recount you win the election. it's just the shaking out of the votes. there is no doubt that i think i write in chapter 5 franken was a tough candidate and a democrat in 2008 against a bush ally and

senator who voted for the bailout and if you remember the polls changed dramatically when coleman fonted for the bank bailout. it changed from coleman being added to franken being ahead. i think it was october 15th. that hurt coleman even though in retrospect some people think it might have been the right vote and the other thing negative about the campaign but no one can figure out is the final weekend when there with the allegations about senator coleman's wife getting money from an insurance company and then coleman having a last minute commercial blaming franken and having an unprecedented sunday night tv commercial for the tuesday saying it wasn't me, get out of here, norm coleman is lobbying get out of here. so i think to answer your question negative he won the election and recount. you're right, it was super close and i think that the obama turn

out come even though it wasn't as good as it should have been, helped franken a lot, too. i don't know if that answers it but the fact that norm can only get 42% doesn't say a lot about his strength either. barkley got 16% which is what is the difference? >> i think we are on to something because in the campaign we are constantly identified with bush and now what's happening across the country they are identified in obama with a particular candidate is running in the matter affecting a lot of the candidate said they don't want anything to do with obama they don't want him campaigning or anything. so is the president have that much influence? >> ask harry reid. i think so. islamic what ever became -- what is the story oppose fathom who votes in somebody strong in minneapolis and then in the open

a warehouse. were they ever wheel? >> the so called for 32 in the trunk of cindy? they were not in their right about that. the work of votes that were discovered in a precinct. they were totally under control in the right to custody. cindy reichert used to be the head of the county election officials calls the coleman offices on the friday night after the election and says we want to counties on saturday because the actual accounting by each election unit has to be done quickly. the coleman people get suspicious and seek a hearing of the next morning before the judge who winds up being on the canvassing board, and in the end, fritz tells me they never

said it was in the trunk. knopf never said was in the truck. it was some bloggers and then tim pawlenty went on the news and said it was in the trunk about three or four days after david brower said it wasn't true. so those ballots, the was not true, and the franken people call that i think this saturday morning and bush, i forget what it's called, this sneak attack, but it hurt the coleman side because it got the franken site to realize these guys are going to be on their toes going after us at any moment and was a wake-up call to the team that the coleman side was going to be aggressive on this. >> what do you seek the chances that senator coleman will appear with obama? >> i would think that he would. but he doesn't return my calls. [laughter] neither of them.

what do you think? >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> i think that he will. >> at some point it becomes fairly clear that franken was going to win possibly as early as the canvassing board decision although you didn't get to speak with senator coleman or former senator coleman and mr. ginsburg what you think were the motivations that caused it to drug got another six months, and another question to you tend to market your book in florida? [laughter] >> i have gotten calls from news organizations in florida, so sure that would be great. i prefer to hear but that would be fine. the first question was, i'm sorry? >> [inaudible] >> yes i do think they dragged also franken wouldn't get the seat but i also believe they have the right to do it and i

don't begrudge norm coleman of that. in january he appeals the canvassing board effort and for the election contest he was entitled to do that. our laws niquette quicken 20 days we had a trial. it wasn't his fault last 20 weeks. the judges who are good people and i've gotten to know a couple of them gave him as much time as he wanted and acknowledged the first couple of weeks they were catching up on what this was all about. mark alias said something like in virginia the give you two weeks for capital punishment cases. in minnesota you get seven weeks doherty recount of the guy that already won. [laughter] and then when coleman appeals which he is entitled to do, it takes them a month to determine which is lightening speed for them. so yes there was a deily but one of the things i think and maybe this is a minnesota thing is the

longer it took the longer people realized was fair. and when -- i write about what i think is one of the bigger mystics as he attempted to get franken c to before the trial was done and the supreme court shot him down big time and franken at decision franken me on the legal front early on even before coleman appeals, franken approaches franken and says you wanda recovery muskett you see to in washington and franken said don't do that. he knew he wanted to run again someday and minnesota will think it is getting jammed down their throats. some people would it take forever to get there and did affect the new congress i think in the and it was a -- good for the process, but i guess i am a minnesotan now. >> i got your little late so i apologize if you already answered this. but in the book do you write about what franken was doing

during the recount? because i thought the person who had a hardest job is to have to roll them up in the rug so he didn't say anything during the recount. >> i didn't write much about it out of and he was fund-raising. it was decided political and public relations to have him out of the picture and some of us thought the senator coleman being in the courtroom often was a bad idea because it really showed -- it seemed to indicate he didn't have anything to do and after a while when he was there often there's a certain pathos to that and then he was there an argument for going on in his son was getting hammered by the supreme court in the final arguments. so the message from the franken site is he's preparing to be a senator, he's in washington. of course the star tribune found him on vacation early on. but in the and i think that the

al franken during the recount is delegated and followed instructions and he did -- i think he did the right thing. he delegated to stephanie and she was his spirit client and mark alias reported to her and the briefed franken every night either by phone or person and he had to come to the house unlocked but if you remember, he was only -- when the trial started he made some appearances where he met with mayors and that sort of stuff to show he was still around. but i don't think that the really had to roll them up in the carpet. a team that he was tromping at the bit to go to washington but i don't think that he had much -- he wasn't available to us at all, and the one interview i had with him came in january when they were trying to establish the fact he was going to be kind of senatorial. estimate to comment on the ballots -- there's another set

of ballots from minneapolis that were never located. spec 132 of those. >> have you been able to find them? >> i have them in my trunk. [laughter] wasn't asked to find them. [laughter] but the judges ruled that they were valid votes and this is your official of the recount junkie there were five envelopes, one of two, one of five, 25, three of five, 45, 55, and the number one is missing so there is a feeling we wouldn't count them to, three, four, five, without the one. so david has this kind of tv moment and he shows how the envelopes could be slippery and someone had five of them and one of them slipped away. 132 votes were counted the night and the judges ruled as did the

recount rules say if they had been counted on the night and there was premeditation evidence the existed, then they should count. so no, 132 haven't been found and i believe there were 70 in the roosevelt as i recall that also went missing and the 132 were important. i think he had a net of 36 at the university, and that early on after that saturday morning sneak attack issue of the coleman team accusing franken of wanting to read the church because lutheran church of hope on campus and alias said we need to dig into the basement and it became a big kind of recounts were not found but they were counted. >> was there any provision so that every count had been passed

the term coleman had it gone into january what would have happened, could pawlenty have appointed somebody? >> it did happen. on the day that they counted the first round of absentee ballots on january 3rd, norm coleman's term expired, and then our seat was vacant and there are some states in which you could have attempted to be seated and the senate seats senators so mark alias attempted to get al franken and its possible is supreme court somewhere could have said yes he can be seated and we will let the u.s. senate them. the supreme court didn't allow that. the lead to many weeks to say no to that so we didn't have a senator from january 3rd until july 7th. >> the governor can appoint somebody.

>> not under those circumstances. >> this leads to the question whether we should have some sort of professional seeding here in minnesota. in louisianan they did and the costa major controversy with mary landrieu eight or ten years ago as i recall, and that -- i believe we could. i think that if it looks like he's won the recount and the canvassing board has certified he's got the most votes i don't see why not, and even if the coleman not contest would have overturned it than norm coleman would get the seat, but we would with just one senator for seven months, six months. >> steve have any thought as to why norm coleman did not appeal to the u.s. supreme court? >> i'm not a lawyer either the people who read the opinion said

the one person said was unassailable the opinion the supreme court ruled was so tightly written both of the trial court and the supreme court's acknowledged there was no equal protection issues in this free count like bush v. gore so there were not any federal issues that seem to rise to it and i think at that point i right in the book that they knew what was coming because the way the supreme court argument went in when coleman opened his laptop and read it himself at his home he said that's it, i am done. other people were saying there's a sentence here, there's an opening to redeem he said come on, guys, there is no need to do it, so there wasn't an issue to bring. >> i'm sorry i'm late and maybe you already addressed this, but i [inaudible]

mark ritchie who is now being accused by his opponent of being party to a variety of fraudulent or errors by the provisions during this process. tell us what you think about how he conducted himself during this [inaudible] >> well, i like laurie a lot but i did talk about that. [laughter] and what i said is that he was in my who view sofer there was the democrats' more angry with him than the republicans. they thought that richie dance over backwards to be fair and down the challenge pellets, about 1500 that were counted, there was 96 percentage rate of agreement across-the-board of the five canvassing board members and only 143-to votes and richie voted seven times with anderson and magnuson and seven times with gear and cleary so i don't think he could have been fair and there is one occasion he sided with franken although he had appeared with franken in some campaign

appearances before the election. i for people saving the election was stolen but it was stolen in plain view with the 12 judges, half of them appointed by republicans and so i think mark ritchie did a fine job and again, i don't know him, i've never had dinner with him, i just watched him and he seemed to do -- i was just in seattle and i didn't meet but i met with cui election officials and richie is respected around the country for his attempts to be more modern and change the system and a lot of the things we've changed in our system here on absentee ballots since 2008 or something there ritchie wanted before and but tim pawlenty vetoed some of those so it's not an endorsement or anything but i think did a fair job. thanks everybody for coming. >> jay weiner covered the to those of eight u.s. minnesota

election and recount where he was the recipient of the franc public journalism award presented by the minnesota journalism center for his coverage. for more information, visit jayweiner.com. >> hello everybody. i thank the host for the gracious hospitality, especially mr. orlando [inaudible] i'm honored to be here alongside [inaudible] my name is reeza khalili and of course that isn't my real name. i hope i'm not asking anyone with my appearance here with the

voice and the face. i was a student here in the 70's and after the revolution. i went back hoping that i could help my country. my best friend was in the revolutionary guard and i joined the revolutionary guard. we thought my expertise could help with a solution with infrastructure. but shortly after i witnessed a terrific defense. i witnessed torture, rape with teenage girls, of the use in prison, just because they did not agree with the clerical establishment. i've witnessed the execution, i witnessed this respect to human dignity, and i could no longer

to get. i decided to travel back to the u.s., and i thought to myself i can take my family and go back to the u.s. the u.s. was a second home to me. i had friends here, but i thought i cannot remain silent in the face of all of the horrific things that this regime was doing to its people, and i thought that by contacting the u.s. authorities i could help bring change to the government, and if the americans knew what was going on they would help me help fiat iranian people. so i contacted the fbi and they put me in touch with of the cia. after several meetings of the briefings and one of my meetings the cia case officer asked me if i was willing to go back to iran

and become a spy, become their eyes and ears as you put it. i agreed. i was sent to europe and trained over there to receive coded messages over the radio and to write in visible letters transferring information from the revolutionary guards. i had expected to get a multitasking watch, magical pen and perhaps the james bond car, but none of that happened unfortunately. i was sent some pencils and paper. through my years of working in the revolutionary guards, i had to battle a lot of mixed emotions because i had to repeatedly lied to my family about why i was being a loyal

islamic force, and i couldn't reveal to them that what my true nature was and my purposes were. the would be endangering the whole family. i think the biggest shock to me is when i realized they are not in the mist, they are not realizing the dangers of this regime. they were willing to cite their principles and for what? for greed, oil, more contracts with the islamic regime, even though not only the other iranians were being hurt and their blood spilled on the streets of tehran but the americans were paying also with the beirut bombing which over 241 u.s. servicemen were killed and many others.

so my hope was the what finally realize this regime is a dangerous regime and its -- it poses great danger not only to the iranians in the region who have if national security, and the reason i wrote the book was out of frustration that even to this day we are trying to negotiate the regime as opposed to helping the iranians with their aspirations of freedom and democracy. so i guess the point i want to get across tonight to you is that if you look back at history you see that the prison and the human dignity, the evil acts of

segregationist slavery, fascism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, communism is succeeded in building a better future for the world, and today it is decision time and we have to make sure of that we no longer vacillate and remain indecisive. we have to help iran free itself. it would be good for the armenians and for the world. thank you. >> to watch the program in its entirety, go to booktv.org. simply cut the authors name or the title in the left corner of the screen and type search.