Winner May Not Be Sworn in Until February (Roll Call)

[jefferson_dem]

Winner May Not Be Sworn in Until February
By Kathleen Hunter and Emily Cadei, CQ-Roll Call

The office of Majority Leader Harry Reid says there will be no attempt to swear in a new senator until Massachusetts gets all the right paperwork to Washington. Appointed Sen. Paul G. Kirk Jr. , a Democrat, in the meantime will keep the job and cast the votes. “When there is a certified winner in Massachusetts, the Senate has received appropriate papers, and the Vice President is available, the successor to Sens. Kennedy and Kirk will be sworn in,” said Regan Lachapelle, a Reid, D-Nev., spokeswoman.

Actually, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. isn’t essential to the process, even though he is president of the Senate; there’s plenty of precedent for a swearing-in to be handled by substitutes.

But there’s no substitution for the proper paperwork.

Federal law requires cities and towns to wait 10 days to receive military and overseas absentee ballots that were mailed by Election Day. From there, the municipalities forward their returns to the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, who sends the result to the governor’s office for certification. The governor, secretary of the governor’s council and secretary of the Commonwealth each must sign the certification.

William Galvin, a spokesman for the Secretary of the Commonwealth, there has “never been an instance of the governor not signing the certification given to him.”

“It will be done as expediently as it has been done in the past,” he added.

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[ccharles000]

1. k/r

[Turbineguy]

2. If Coakley wins

repubs will sue. Elections should be abolished. Democracy, sounds a bit like "Democrat".

[jefferson_dem]

4. I heard that Glenn Beck was saying yesterday that the election is over...

If Brown doesn't win, it's because Acorn stole it. No joke. These fuckers hate democracy.

[Clio the Leo]

5. There's already a notion going around...

.... as you may well know .... that there are hundreds of thousands of deceased registered voters on the rolls and the Dems will "no doubt have a lot of those dead folks out voting."

[lamp_shade]

3. Harry has a plan. Count on it.

[guruoo]

6. Make it six months. And a day....

"The judges issued their final ruling late Monday, stating "Franken received the highest
number of lawfully cast ballots in the Nov. 4, 2008 general election." They also have
determined that Franken is entitled to receive the certificate of election."

"Coleman’s concession, given from the front of his St. Paul home, came just a few hours after
the Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously ruled Franken the winner of last November’s
Senate race. In a 5-0 decision, the court upheld a three-judge panel’s April 14 ruling that
Franken defeated Coleman in the race by 312 votes out of 2.9 million cast. The 32-page opinion
was remarkably decisive, picking apart and rejecting one Coleman legal claim after another."