Minn. recount nearly done; next up, the lawsuits

[Lemon law]

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
Hopefully Coleman uses every avenue of appeal to drag out the process for a year or two, during which time the repubs need to make sure Franken is not seated. That will minimize the damage of having that idiot as a senator.

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Word of advice, don't count on a year or two, at a certain point, a higher court will simply say no to a Coleman lawsuit, or Coleman will win a right to have something recounted and still come up short.

This is not Anandtech where every assertion is given credibility, at a certain point Coleman will run out of valid arguments and everyone will basically know it.

Courts seldom allow themselves to be shamelessly used.

 

[nageov3t]

anyone else think it was fishy that in every single dispute Coleman and Franken had, everything was decided in Franken's favor?

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: loki8481
anyone else think it was fishy that in every single dispute Coleman and Franken had, everything was decided in Franken's favor?

Anybody think its fishy that the Coleman camp kept disputing good votes to get a higher count on election day?
Anybody think its fishy that the Coleman camp had the StateSC allow the recount their way and when it did not end up in their favor now they want a do over?


and on and on and on... :roll: [/Tinfoil hat]

 

[JSt0rm]

Colemen is a dick in real life. I'm glad he is out. It's one thing to be crooked but then to be a total dick to people on top of it...

 

[sactoking]

Originally posted by: Stoneburner
I don't understand what the complaint is about the MINN recount. They seem to have properly recounted every vote that needed recounting and they tried to make it so that every properly cast ballot was counted.

This is a bad thing? This isn't Florida 2000, this is what florida 2000 should have been.

If you believe that, I have some beachfront property in Oklahoma to sell you.

Link

Originally posted by: sactoking
This was challenged by Franken due to the extra line and awarded to "Other/No one".
This was challenged by Franken due to the extra lines and awarded to "Other/No one".
This was challenged by Franken due to the extra lines and awarded to "Other/No one".
This was challenged by Franken due to the extra lines and awarded to "Other/No one".
This was challenged by Franken due to the extra lines and awarded to "Other/No one".
This was challenged by Franken due to the extra lines and awarded to Coleman.
This was challenged by Franken due to the extra lines and awarded to Coleman.

See a pattern? There isn't one. Ballots marked almost identically are arbitrarily awarded with no rhyme or reason.

This was challenged by Coleman due to the extra lines and awarded to Franken.
This was challenged by Coleman due to the extra lines and awarded to Franken.
This was challenged by Coleman due to the extra lines and awarded to Franken.
This was challenged by Coleman due to the extra lines and awarded to Franken.
This was challenged by Coleman due to the extra lines and awarded to Franken.
This was challenged by Coleman due to the extra lines and awarded to Franken.
This was challenged by Coleman due to the extra lines and awarded to Franken.
This was challenged by Coleman due to the extra lines and awarded to Franken.
This was challenged by Coleman due to the extra lines and awarded to "Other/No one".

See a pattern? Yup, if it's marked for Coleman in a questionable fashion it's not decipherable but if it's marked for Franken in the EXACT SAME questionable fashion it's clearly for Franken.

Seriously, this is a valid vote?

I went through all 468 ballots and here's what I learned:
1. People voting for Franken were much more likely to get confused and initially vote for the guy who stands for the OPPOSITE of what they want.
2. The people 'deciphering' these votes just make a whole bunch of shit up.
3. The average vote was challenged because the voter was a douche and can't do something as simple as fill in a bubble correctly.

 

[Aegeon]

Originally posted by: sactoking
If you believe that, I have some beachfront property in Oklahoma to sell you.

So in other words you're just trying to mislead us and selectively cherry picked ballot results in a confusing manner. You're also flagrantly ignoring the generally pretty clear reasoning given out by the canvassing board when all the votes were reviewed with Coleman and Franken observers and the discussion shown live on the web. You can disagree with the reasoning they used but the rules were generally applied in a pretty systematic manner.

In one of the cases, specifically the fifth one down, its simply an error by the Star Tribune, and the vote was actually awarded to Coleman and not no-one. It appears the paper has now corrected itself though and noted that the vote did go to Coleman, so its obvious that the original info was simply a mistake.

You obviously left out a wide variety of other challenged ballots, such as one originally marked as an overvote since it clearly had ovals entirely filled in for both Franken and Coleman, but awarded to Coleman since there were a few stray marks that looked like it possibly could have been an attempt to cross out the Franken oval fill in, so they considered the Franken oval crossed out and gave the vote for Coleman.

It also should be noted that with a 225 vote margin a few quesitonable decisions are not going to alter the outcome.

 

[L00PY]

Originally posted by: sactoking
Seriously, this is a valid vote?

[/quote]
Yup. It was challenged for marks outside oval, however you can still determine voter intent so by law, the vote is counted. The voter marked the ballot the same way for Obama for President, Franken for Senator, Madia for US Rep, and Doepke for State Rep.

Plus, it looks like you got reason for the challenge wrong in all of your examples. The majority of them were challenged for voter intent, not for stray marks. Some were challenged for identifying marks on the ballot. You may want to read the MN statute on voter intent.

 

[GoPackGo]

This will probably be another case going to the USSC.

The reason is 2 members of the canvassing boarding are on the MNSC and how can anyone expect a fair judgement?

 

[Aegeon]

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
This will probably be another case going to the USSC.

The reason is 2 members of the canvassing boarding are on the MNSC and how can anyone expect a fair judgement?

The two members in question have recused themselves from all the MNSC rulings involving the canvassing board in any way, so you would basically expect a reasonably fair judgments. Generally you would expect their colleges to be inclined agree with their judgment, but this isn't guaranteed, and they are not involved in the court rulings so there is a strong check on any canvassing board policies that are sufficiently questionable.

Its really rather spectacularly unlikely that the US Supreme Court will end up directly weighing in on the case at this point. Basically all the MNSC court rulings have been supportable interpretations of state law, (sometimes mostly reaffirming previous pretty clear precedents from previous recounts) and the Supreme Court is usually extremely reluctant to meddle in the details of state law and how they conduct their elections baring extreme judicial misconduct. (While aspects of the Bush V. Gore case were extremely unusual, they were able to cite a federal constitutional principle for their decision in that case.) Another relevant detail at this point is the lead is large enough that even a ruling favoring several of Coleman's legal arguments in some cases would clearly still not be enough to actually alter the outcome, and the Supreme Court would be even more extremely reluctant to get involved if they think their ruling won't even really matter.

 

[chowderhead]

Originally posted by: Aegeon

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
This will probably be another case going to the USSC.

The reason is 2 members of the canvassing boarding are on the MNSC and how can anyone expect a fair judgement?

The two members in question have recused themselves from all the MNSC rulings involving the canvassing board in any way, so you would basically expect a reasonably fair judgments. Generally you would expect their colleges to be inclined agree with their judgment, but this isn't guaranteed, and they are not involved in the court rulings so there is a strong check on any canvassing board policies that are sufficiently questionable.

Its really rather spectacularly unlikely that the US Supreme Court will end up directly weighing in on the case at this point. Basically all the MNSC court rulings have been supportable interpretations of state law, (sometimes mostly reaffirming previous pretty clear precedents from previous recounts) and the Supreme Court is usually extremely reluctant to meddle in the details of state law and how they conduct their elections baring extreme judicial misconduct. (While aspects of the Bush V. Gore case were extremely unusual, they were able to cite a federal constitutional principle for their decision in that case.) Another relevant detail at this point is the lead is large enough that even a ruling favoring several of Coleman's legal arguments in some cases would clearly still not be enough to actually alter the outcome, and the Supreme Court would be even more extremely reluctant to get involved if they think their ruling won't even really matter.

Five of 7 members of the MN Supreme Court including the Chief Justice are Republican appointed, one is unaffiliated and one is an independent

With regards to the ballots that Sactoking posted, it is difficult to judge those because they are copies of the original ballot. The canvassing board actually looked at the original ballots and they made the determination of whether the X was over or under the filled in oval. If the X was over the oval they generally concluded that the ballot was an undervote and gave the vote to noone. If the X was under the filled in oval, they gave the vote to whoever the candidate was on that line. He just picked out examples of either that makes Coleman look like the victim when that was not the case. There was lots of cases where the X was under the filled in oval and Coleman got that vote. You can watch the whole thing because they streamed over the internet.

Franken won and Coleman should stop being a sore loser and concede.

 

[dennilfloss]

NM. I was wrong.

 

[bozack]

Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
Sheer idiocy. What you're seeking would be judicial activism at its worst.

<------- voted for Coleman

Happens all the time in MA, plenty of issues never make it to the ballot because of political and judicial activism despite the people's wishes...so why not spread the love around to MN as well...this whole thing was a sham anyway.

 

[sportage]

Well this is a pretty cut case in court.
Franken... "let every cast vote count!"
Coleman..." Forget voting rights, democracy and law, I wanta win".
Typical GW era logic.

 

[sportage]

BTW...
Recounts are over!!!
Any... "ANY" court challenge should be tossed out on the courthouse steps.
Not to be allowed thru the doors.
Simple sour grapes from Coleman.
Franken should be seated in congress come day one!

PS.
Coleman is just going to destroy his future political hopes, if any,
and further damage his own party.
Even Richard Nixon had the brains to "do the right thing" back in 1960.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: bozack

Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
Sheer idiocy. What you're seeking would be judicial activism at its worst.

<------- voted for Coleman

Happens all the time in MA, plenty of issues never make it to the ballot because of political and judicial activism despite the people's wishes...so why not spread the love around to MN as well...this whole thing was a sham anyway.

Great rationale - two wrongs DO make a right! No wonder this post comes from the same sterling mind who wanted to see a Democratic President impeached as soon as he reached office, whether or not he had done anything wrong.

 

[Lemon law]

Even though I am a democrat and want Franken to win, I still think Coleman has the right to appeal on legal grounds. Its written into Minnesota state law, and as long as Coleman makes an effort to get his appeals promptly resolved, I still think the courts must be given their chance to resolve a few of the remaining question to prove to everyone that the person with the most votes won.

But if the public perception becomes Coleman is filing endless lawsuits just to delay the inevitable, he will hurt himself and the GOP. And as sportage points out, one or more courts may simply say they have no standing to decide such questions, and toss the case. And if it quickly gets to SCOTUS and they decline, its should be over.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Even though I am a democrat and want Franken to win, I still think Coleman has the right to appeal on legal grounds. Its written into Minnesota state law, and as long as Coleman makes an effort to get his appeals promptly resolved, I still think the courts must be given their chance to resolve a few of the remaining question to prove to everyone that the person with the most votes won.

But if the public perception becomes Coleman is filing endless lawsuits just to delay the inevitable, he will hurt himself and the GOP. And as sportage points out, one or more courts may simply say they have no standing to decide such questions, and toss the case. And if it quickly gets to SCOTUS and they decline, its should be over.

He already went to court on the ballots...

"The court had previously ordered that only ballots local officials and both campaigns could agree were rejected in error could be counted. A consensus was met on about 950 of 1,350 originally found by local officials."

So the court has already given them say. They came to a agreement and he did not win. Now he wants a do over since his first time did not end the way he wanted.