Coleman wants judges to review 12,000 twice-rejected ballots

[struggle4progress]

Source: Minnesota Independent

By Chris Steller 1/19/09 5:07 PM

Norm Coleman’s lawyers said today they might ask a three-judge panel to open every absentee ballot that was rejected in Minnesota’s contested Senate election. That would be about 12,000 ballots, or nearly 10 times the 1,350 that the state Canvassing Board examined during a recount that left Al Franken with a 225-vote lead.

The lawyers estimate that the court would find more than half the 12,000 had been wrongly rejected. And unlike the rejected ballots that favored Franken, the Coleman forces say these 6,000 or so ballots would be more evenly distributed among the candidates.

Compared with Franken’s forces, the lawyers in Coleman’s camp are late converts to the belief that a plenitude of rejected absentee ballots in Minnesota’s Senate election need to be reviewed. Yet their new-found ardor is arguably twice as strong as their rivals’ — they want the court to review ballots that election officials have by now twice rejected ...

Read more: http://minnesotaindependent.com/23738/coleman-wants-judges-to-review-11000-twice-rejected-ballots

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Coleman going after all rejected absentee ballots
In a major shift in strategy, the GOP camp wants all 12,000 ballots reviewed.
By PAT DOYLE and MIKE KASZUBA, Star Tribune staff writers
Last update: January 19, 2009 - 11:10 PM

The sweeping new proposal, Coleman attorneys said, could bring as many as 7,000 more ballots into the race in which DFLer Al Franken has held a 225-vote lead since the recount ended Jan. 5. And it illustrates the first pivotal task facing the three-judge panel that will hear, beginning this week, Coleman's court challenge to Franken's lead -- figuring out exactly how far-reaching the legal challenge should be.

The latest move also revealed the about-face both campaigns have made over the past month: When Coleman held an unofficial lead in the recount last month, his lawyers argued before the Minnesota Supreme Court that rejected absentee ballots should not be part of the recount. Now, with Franken holding a lead gained in part by successfully arguing to include some rejected absentee ballots, the Franken campaign reacted coolly to reconsidering all 12,000 rejected absentee ballots ...

As early as Wednesday, the judges must start making decisions about the scope and very existence of the court fight. Franken wants the judges to dismiss Coleman's challenge outright. They will hear arguments on that motion Wednesday. Failing that, Franken's lawyers say, the court should limit its work to merely verifying the math and other decisions of the state Canvassing Board.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/37853404.html?elr=KArks:DCiU1OiP:DiiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU
http://tinyurl.com/8zvmkl

In Minnesota, Another Bid for a Recount
By MONICA DAVEY
Published: January 19, 2009

... “If the absentee voter was alive on Election Day, was either a registered voter or included a registration card with his or her ballot, and did not otherwise vote, then his or her absentee ballot should be counted — if the voter’s intent can be determined from the ballot,” Mr. <Fritz Knaak, a lawyer for Mr. Coleman’s campaign> said.

Generally, absentee ballots have been rejected in Minnesota if, for example, a voter failed to sign his or her name. Already, during the recount, representatives from the Franken campaign argued that some absentee ballots had been improperly rejected; ultimately, more than 900 of such absentee ballots were opened and counted, under a process laid out by the State Supreme Court.

“We’re not going to respond to any proposal they make until they figure out what, exactly, their proposal is,” Andy Barr, of the Franken campaign, said Monday.

Mr. Barr said the Coleman campaign had shifted, over and over, on this question of absentee ballots, and had at one point “said there were no wrongly rejected absentee ballots.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20minnesota.html?_r=1

[Jim Lane]

1. Hypocrisy, thy name is Coleman

I don't favor hypertechnicality, but if the ballot isn't even signed, some Republican operative might have gotten his hands on it and returned it without the real voter ever seeing it.

This is desperation by Coleman.

[sakabatou]

2. SORE LOSER!

[azurnoir]

3. Geez Norm just give it up already

you'd think he'd be embarrassed

[DCKit]

29. Republicon shame? No such thing.

See: Vitter, David and Craig, Larry.

[truthisfreedom]

4. I welcome this. I want him to win this case and

discover that he lost by an ever-increasing margin.

[radfringe]

5. assume for a moment that they do review the 12,000 ballots

What will Coleman do when those ballots still give Franken the lead?

Will he then declare the entire election was illegal and demand a new election?

Coleman is becoming more and more pathetic with each passing day.

[aquart]

20. Counting 'em is fine by me.

Can't wait to see why these were rejected.

I would like precedent that makes it prohibitively expensive to reject any ballot. I would like it on the books that a candidate can take it to the wall like this.

I want it easier to count 'em than reject 'em.

So go ahead, Normie. Do it.

[Deja Q]

33. Good point. So this nonsense, from any candidate, won't happen again.

Pity it'd be a republican and not a democrat, but I'm sure the repubes will find some sort of half-baked spin...

[calimary]

6. Let's see... what were they telling us in November and early December 2000?

"...The people have spoken. They counted the votes. They counted them again. They counted them a third time..."

Sore Loserman. Give it up, coleman. You LOST. Grow up and be a man and admit it. And then please just go AWAY.

[Xipe Totec]

7. Like twice cooked pork, he is well done - put a fork in him n/t

[Optical.Catalyst]

8. Coleman should pack it in - Fraken won, get over it

Coleman's time would be far better spent preparing his legal defense to keep his rear end out of jail.

[Joe Chi Minh]

9. Is Coleman having a nervous breakdown, do you think? It seems irrational to

want a third count, and needlessly expose himself to further humiliation.

[Frank Cannon]

10. Someone's forcing him to do this

Have you seen the guy lately? He looks like a nervous store clerk being held at gunpoint under the counter.

His behavior is ensuring that he never has a future in politics again.

[NOW tense]

11. Well you can wish in one hand and crap in the other, and see which gets filled first!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

14. What if you wish for crap?

[NOW tense]

19. Then Coleman's wish comes true.

[MasonJar]

12. If I did not sign my ballot, I could hardly expect it to be counted; that

omission would be my fault. I have to sign at the polling place. I have to sign if I go absentee (as I did thi year.) Go, Norm, away, that is! Seat Al.

[LiberalFighter]

17. Just like when an IRS return is filed. If it ain't signed it won't get processed until it is.

[SpiralHawk]

13. Typical republicon. Can't handle the truth

So he tries to create some freaky republicon Wide-Stance Truthiness...

[DallasNE]

15. I'm Not A Fan Of Absentee Ballots

While there is a need for absentee ballots I think they should be used only when there is a burden with going to the polls. Call me old-fashioned, but the secrecy of the ballot can easily be compromised in the absentee process. Said another way, absentee ballots <i>can</i> be sold. I'm not saying many are. The reason for a signature is an assurance that the legal voter cast the ballot. Accordinly, I would never accept a ballot where the envelope containing the ballot had not been signed. Coleman is nuts to even ask that these ballots be considered. When a voter goes to the polls they sign the register. That is the function served by the signature on the envelope. It is a minimum requirement for a valid ballot.

[elocs]

16. Let's be honest, if it were the other way around we would expect Franken

to do everything he legally could to secure an election victory because our assumption would be that the election was stolen. It would then be the Republicans who would be calling Franken "loserman" and telling him to "give it up". Anything worth having is worth waiting for, so let's have the patience to allow the legal process in MN to take its course.

[struggle4progress]

22. I think the standard judicial approach would be to examine at each stage

the issues raised and improperly handled at the previous stage

Thus, the canvas re-examined the inclusion/exclusion decisions of the local boards and also the questions associated with incorrect ballot assessment by the local boards, based on the objections of the candidates

It is natural to expect that the trial should examine only some fairly limited issues, preferably already raised by the candidates -- since otherwise nothing prevents an endless discovery and litigation

Coleman was so satisfied previously with the decisions regarding the absentee ballots, that he opposed opening any improperly rejected before the canvas. Coleman had the chance to raise this issue of absentee ballots at the time of ther canvas, and also opposed his opponent's effort to take such a matter into consideration; that would have been the natural time for him to insist that he thought other ballots should be counted; he did not do so because he thought himself ahead and for that reason merely opposed Franken's effort to enlarge the pool of ballots counted; Franken won that fight; Coleman now seeks to reverse his previous argument, to ask for further ballots to be counted; the natural view of the court should be that he cannot reverse his own argument halfway through an adjudicatory process -- since allowing that would open the floodgates to litigants filing one motion after another inconsistently, whenever cases did not go their way: that is, he not only failed to avail himself of an opportunity when he could have, but even claimed that the opportunity ought not exist, and now should forfeit that opportunity, having missed the time to use it

[LiberalFighter]

18. How does Coleman expect the court to rule in his favor?

If the signature on the ballot certificate does not match the one on file with the election board it is not valid.

It is impossible to match a blank spot with a signature.

[AndyTiedye]

26. Either to Drag it Our for Months or Years, or to Find a Bushbot Judge on Appeal

What Coleman is doing is trying to drag this out as long as possible, since every day they do
is a day with one less Democratic Senator. He may also be hoping that the courts are packed
with enough Bushbots that they might hand the election to him.

[LiberalFighter]

27. Those in Minnesota need to do a letter writing campaign to the media.

If they haven't already been doing it.

[Bette Noir]

21. Best two out of three? Three out of five? Four out of seven?

[struggle4progress]

24. Bingo

[Deja Q]

32. Five out of sixty nine million, forty two thousand, nine... point seven.

And even then.

[LynnTheDem]

23. Funny how Coleman said Franken should concede and that he would do so if he were

in Franken's place.

Now he's in Franken's place and....


Rightwingnuts; biggest hypocrites on the planet.

[Owl]

25. Give it up Norm, you lost.

[gratuitous]

28. Turn those machines back on! Turn those machines back on!

Anyone else hearing Don Ameche at the end of "Trading Places"?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

30. .... but what about your brother? FUCK HIM!!

[Deja Q]

31. Gee Norm, I thought that would be a WASTE OF TAXPAYER MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, it was when the MANDATED-BY-STATE-LAW recount first took place!

They have been recounted. Twice. Rejected.

How much longer does this charade take place?

We're in a big enough hole thanks to enough blunders by previous (and in some cases, current) leadership. Enough is blanking enough. Norm, you lost. Even if you do somehow "win", you're not going to have any respect. From anybody. Which includes your own side.