Coleman sues over Minnesota Senate recount result

HA!! HA!! HA!! HA!!

Coleman crying.

Another republican that lost his seat. < :-)

Figures.....when votes in a county are higher then the voting population one needs to revisit them.

Funny real funny how Coleman is now crying foul, but when he was in the lead he was asking Franken to bowl out gracefully. Now the man if yelling and screaming bloodie murder.

Here is another funny one for you, why did Obama a Democrat get more votes than McCain a Republican. But at first Coleman appeared to have more votes than Franken?

Funny how Coleman will not bow out gracefully for the good of the country.LOL

Ahhh....SENATOR Al Franken:

He's good enough; he's smart enough; and doggone it, more people voted for him!

As for coleman, yeah, this about says it all:

The morning after the Nov. 4 election, norm coleman stood before TV cameras, declared victory in Minnesota's U.S. Senate election and said that if he were opponent Al Franken he'd "step aside."

What.a.tool.

Then again...if I were staring down the barrel of a nasty indictment for illegal campaign contributions, I would likely want to stay in the relative safety zone that U.S. Senate seat offers. But I'm sure his house looks FABULOUS!

TTFN normie.

Sen. Franken,

Somewhere in heaven, Sen. Wellstone is smiling.

Taka

Turns out some votes were for Gary Coleman. Hey Minnesota - you're dysfunctional alright - Jessie Ventura (not even his real name) for governor, now you're calling Franken a misfit?

Taka,

How close are the feds to nailing Norm?

It is amusing that somewhere along the line the incumbent changed his tune. Specifically, Coleman asked Franken to concede on election night so everyone could put the bitterly fought content behind them and spare the state a lengthy legal battle.

Flip flop time? Banish the thought! His lawsuit, as he explained today, is based on a bigger principle than just the results of one silly little election. (Pardon me if I'm a little skeptical in concluding it's about his own political survival at all costs. Undoubtedly, he's rattling a tin cup to cover the costs.)

His suit makes essentially the same case Al Gore did in 2000, namely there's no uniform standard for tossing or counting individual ballots. Nor could there ever really be one given the role discretion plays in the process.

Everyone should remember JTP, aka Samuel Wurzelbacher. It came out his last name had been misspelled on his voter registration and he'd never bothered to correct it. That could get your ballot tossed (though it hadn't in his case). In the event of a recount, it could not be tossed having been accepted the first time. For someone whose ballot had been disqualified for the same reason, there would be no grounds to reverse that decision in a recount.

Betzee,

Looks like the FBI is investigating.

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=8055354&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1

Of course, that's if you choose to believe those crazy biased liberals over at the fox affiliate in Minneapolis. ;-)

Taka

225 votes? Damn. Don't you need a re-vote when things get that close?

A must-read article here:

The Wall Street Journal is bar none one of the best newspapers in the country -- except when its Editorial Board is having a bad day. And today the Board is having a very bad day, having published an editorial that declares Al Franken's provisional win in Minnesota, which the state just certified moments ago, to be illegitimate, while accusing Minnesota's Canvassing Board of being inconsistent and biased in favor of Franken.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with taking such a position. The Journal's editorial, however, has several basic facts wrong, makes several other assertions based on flimsy or nonexistent evidence, and generally has little understanding of the process that has taken place to date.

Let's go through the editorial paragraph by paragraph.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/01/did-wall-street-jorunal-fire-their-fact.html

Democracy is not a machine. Sometimes it’s messy and inconvenient, and reaching the best conclusion is never quick because speed is not the first objective, fairness is.

Isn't that almost the exact opposite of Bush's claim when he went to the court to have himself declared the winner in Florida? But not that we need to be consistent....

225 votes? Damn. Don't you need a re-vote when things get that close?

That depends on the state's constitution. There is no provision for a run-off in Minnesota (as occurred in Georgia).

It's hardly surprising the election was close. Challenger Coleman was in a tight race against Paul Wellstone in 2002 when Wellstone, who had voted against the war authorization for Iraq, was killed in a plane crash. He himself had won against the incumbent Rudy Boschwitz in 1990, prevailing with a shoestring operation.

I don't blame Coleman for this. I mean he was leading by almost a 1000 votes. Now, 100 vote swing the other way after counties and precincts kept 'finding' new votes for Franken. 200 votes here, another 100 votes there. Wow, all for Franken. Amazing that. Hand counting the ballots. If a ballot is marked for both Franken and Coleman, the ballot of course is awarded to Franken. Hmmm.

In 2000, the Dems said, we won't allow another stolen election! They've proved it since. No, instead, they're the ones doing the stealing. In Washington in 04, and Minnesota in 08.

No, you can't "blame" Coleman. The vote is close and he is within his legal right to challenge.

Nonetheless, the basis for the challenge is one Gore would have liked to use in 2000 and one which Bush repudiated. Additionally, if we are going to be cynical, it might be that the only reason that we are "finding" votes for Franken now is that they were somehow "lost" in the original count. And only Franken votes lost Hmmm.

I don't blame Coleman for this. I mean he was leading by almost a 1000 votes. Now, 100 vote swing the other way after counties and precincts kept 'finding' new votes for Franken. 200 votes here, another 100 votes there. Wow, all for Franken.

They're not "all for Franken". See my link above.

I appreciated your link, Nessie, as well as Taka's.

Coleman is fortunate the state constitution does not mandate a run-off because which would exclude the third party candidate who took 15,000 (?) votes cast by people who would presumably support Franken over Coleman. (Some of the ballots which both sides agreed should be included were for write-ins like Mickey Mouse.)

Elections are winner-take-all and no doubt losing is tough, particularly in a close race. What makes Coleman the butt of jokes is that he's doing exactly what he said Franken should not do when he was ahead, namely contest the results in a drawn out legal battle. "Let the healing begin" and all that.

I would presume outside benefactors are picking up the legal tab which is now on Coleman since the state decided, following a mandatory recount, Franken was the winner.

obama's little acorns, bearing their rotten fruit.

I would presume outside benefactors are picking up the legal tab which is now on Coleman since the state decided, following a mandatory recount, Franken was the winner.

Well, we know normie doesn't have the cash, with his house re-modeling costs and all. Unless...those same "outside benefactors" are picking up his housing bills as well. ;-)

Taka

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2009/01/09/franken/

Jan. 9, 2009 | If Al Franken were not a longtime public figure -- and thus severely handicapped by American jurisprudence -- he could file a powerful complaint for libel or slander against several of the most prominent wingnuts in the United States. From Rush Limbaugh to Bill O'Reilly to Richard Mellon Scaife, a chorus of familiar voices is loudly defaming the Democrat whose razor-thin win in the Minnesota Senate race will now be tested in that state's courts. Ever since Election Day, on radio and television, on the Internet and in print, they've screamed that Franken is stealing, rigging, pilfering, scamming, thieving and cheating his way to victory.

These media figures, some of whom occasionally pretend to be journalists, have spewed such accusations repeatedly, without offering any proof whatsoever -- in plain contradiction of the available facts. Not only is there no evidence that Franken or his campaign "cheated" in any way during the election or the recount, but there is ample reason to believe that the entire process was fair, balanced and free from partisan taint.