Minn. Supreme Court intervenes in recount case

[winnar111]

http://www.kxmb.com/News/309313.asp

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) The Minnesota Supreme Court is getting involved in the state's unsettled U.S. Senate race.

The court said Monday it will weigh whether to stop the sorting and counting of wrongly rejected absentee ballots until clear instructions are handed down.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman petitioned the court to step in after the state board overseeing the recount recommended those ballots be considered last week. Coleman maintains there aren't clear guidelines for the recommendation and could lead to disarray among the 87 counties.

Democrat Al Franken made a big push to include absentee ballots in the recount that were improperly set aside. Minnesota has four legal reasons for rejecting an absentee ballot, but some of the decisions on or before Election Day fell outside those reasons.

The Supreme Court asked the parties to submit arguments in writing by Tuesday in advance of a hearing the next day.



Another losing Democrat tries to throw a fuss by counting and recounting votes until they 'find' enough to win. Sadly these people don't go away.

Democrats are trying to back away from a special election in IL because they might lose it, citing 'cost', but apparently are willing to waste lots of money in MN.

 

[JSt0rm]

Originally posted by: winnar111
Sadly these people don't go away.

I agree with this part

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: winnar111
http://www.kxmb.com/News/309313.asp

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) The Minnesota Supreme Court is getting involved in the state's unsettled U.S. Senate race.

The court said Monday it will weigh whether to stop the sorting and counting of wrongly rejected absentee ballots until clear instructions are handed down.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman petitioned the court to step in after the state board overseeing the recount recommended those ballots be considered last week. Coleman maintains there aren't clear guidelines for the recommendation and could lead to disarray among the 87 counties.

Democrat Al Franken made a big push to include absentee ballots in the recount that were improperly set aside. Minnesota has four legal reasons for rejecting an absentee ballot, but some of the decisions on or before Election Day fell outside those reasons.

The Supreme Court asked the parties to submit arguments in writing by Tuesday in advance of a hearing the next day.



Another losing Democrat tries to throw a fuss by counting and recounting votes until they 'find' enough to win. Sadly these people don't go away.

Democrats are trying to back away from a special election in IL because they might lose it, citing 'cost', but apparently are willing to waste lots of money in MN.

^ More evidence of Republican contempt for the electorate.


There, four years of bitching covered in two posts. Now maybe you ought to wait and see what the Supremes have to say before more mouth pooping.

 

[Perknose]

Only a complete partisan hack like the OP could find serious fault with Minnesota's admirably conscientious and transparent effort to count every legitimate vote, UNLIKE what happened in Florida.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: loozar111

Another losing Democrat tries to throw a fuss by counting and recounting votes until they 'find' enough to win. Sadly these people don't go away.

Democrats are trying to back away from a special election in IL because they might lose it, citing 'cost', but apparently are willing to waste lots of money in MN.

I read the same story. All it says is that the court asked for arguments from both sides by Tuesday, and they'll hold a hearing the next day.

Did you fail your civics and government classes?

Last time I checked, that's how the system works. The number of votes between them is maybe a couple of hundred out of over 2.2 million, and both sides have disputed ballots.

That's why we have courts - To resolve such disputes peacefully and legally. How else would you have them resolve the election? Would you prefer a pistol duel at dawn or spitwads at 30 paces? How about best two out of three at rock-paper-scissors? :roll:

Based on the facts in the story at your link, nothing supports your dumbass conclusions.

 

[villageidiot111]

Considering the margin of votes between the candidates is in the low hundreds I think it is especially important that every legitimate vote be counted. If the margin were 100,000 things might be different, but in this case every vote makes all the difference.

 

[RabidMongoose]

I don't know...I think that it's pretty reasonable by Norm Coleman to petition this issue to the MN Supreme Court if there really aren't clear and uniform guidelines for all of the counties for the recommendation of counting disputed ballots. It also seems kind of consistent from Bush v. Gore.

 

[Lemon law]

Two points to make, we should all agree that all legitimate votes should be counted. (1) And Minnesota should be the arbiter of the criteria with the Minnesota supreme court setting the standards. (2) Once the Minnesota supreme court establishes the standards, then all the legitimate votes should be tallied, and he with the most votes should be declared the winner.

And I too have to agree with Perknose, it beats the heck out of niggling court appeals that could take a year or more. Establish Minnesota standards and be done with it.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Two points to make, we should all agree that all legitimate votes should be counted. (1) And Minnesota should be the arbiter of the criteria with the Minnesota supreme court setting the standards. (2) Once the Minnesota supreme court establishes the standards, then all the legitimate votes should be tallied, and he with the most votes should be declared the winner.

And I too have to agree with Perknose, it beats the heck out of niggling court appeals that could take a year or more. Establish Minnesota standards and be done with it.

Actually the first thing should be that all should be counted using the standard set before the ballots were cast, thus not letting the courts or politics sway how things are done during recounts.

 

[Lemon law]

While Cad has a small point in stating, "Actually the first thing should be that all should be counted using the standard set before the ballots were cast, thus not letting the courts or politics sway how things are done during recounts." Sadly, right now, its a been there and done that with the Cad point, what is now lacking is any clear guidelines of how to deal with disputed ballots on both sides that totally dwarfs the current margin of victory. As it is, Franken may well have the current recount lead while the Minnesota canvassing board is unwilling to take a position. So it more or less defaults to the Minnesota supreme court to set Stae wide standards in what amounts to an unprecedented problem.

Failing a Minnesota solution, I doubt the United States Supreme Court will touch the problem, which might kick the election to the US Senate to decide, and if that happens, Coleman is likely to be toast.

Make up your mind Cad.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: winnar111


Another losing Democrat tries to throw a fuss by counting and recounting votes until they 'find' enough to win. Sadly these people don't go away.

Democrats are trying to back away from a special election in IL because they might lose it, citing 'cost', but apparently are willing to waste lots of money in MN.

You call this 'Bush v. Gore 2.0'. You haven't shown any understanding of 1.0 yet, have you?

Can you summarize the actual issues? Do you admit wrong by the Justices for Bush?

You say 'another losing democrat', implying Gore was one. Are you that ignorant of the Gore situation?

Gore officially won the popular vote. He won the election by the media-funded recount. And there were all kinds of election problems each of which cost him the election, from the badly designed buterfly ballot that hurt him but not Bush, to the low funding in black districts leading to bad machines with far higher rates of votes invalidated than in the white districts, to the voter suppression 'felon lists' with tens of thousands of false matches.

Thanks for the post as a chance to rebut you with the truth yet again.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
While Cad has a small point in stating, "Actually the first thing should be that all should be counted using the standard set before the ballots were cast, thus not letting the courts or politics sway how things are done during recounts." Sadly, right now, its a been there and done that with the Cad point, what is now lacking is any clear guidelines of how to deal with disputed ballots on both sides that totally dwarfs the current margin of victory. As it is, Franken may well have the current recount lead while the Minnesota canvassing board is unwilling to take a position. So it more or less defaults to the Minnesota supreme court to set Stae wide standards in what amounts to an unprecedented problem.

Failing a Minnesota solution, I doubt the United States Supreme Court will touch the problem, which might kick the election to the US Senate to decide, and if that happens, Coleman is likely to be toast.

Make up your mind Cad.

My mind is made up - follow the rules as established when the ballots were cast. If a ballot is tossed it should not be suddenly counted during a recount as a recount should be a recount of the ballots allowed on election night. So while you likely can not think of every situation that might come up, there should be a way set up in the rules to deal with tossed ballots. At the current time there is NOTHING that suggests they should be allowed in the recount - thus they shouldn't be allowed. Yes yes, if they were "good" ballots they should have been counted in the first place but there is no proceedure for allowing them back in currently. Also, unlike Perknose and some others - I don't happen to think everything is as clean as they'd like to suggest. "finding" ballots and then the thing about not using the recount numbers and instead using election night's numbers? Uh hello? This is a recount - the recount numbers are what is supposed to be counted. You can't pick and choose which result sets you want to use - it's F'n ridiculous.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: Lemon law
While Cad has a small point in stating, "Actually the first thing should be that all should be counted using the standard set before the ballots were cast, thus not letting the courts or politics sway how things are done during recounts." Sadly, right now, its a been there and done that with the Cad point, what is now lacking is any clear guidelines of how to deal with disputed ballots on both sides that totally dwarfs the current margin of victory. As it is, Franken may well have the current recount lead while the Minnesota canvassing board is unwilling to take a position. So it more or less defaults to the Minnesota supreme court to set Stae wide standards in what amounts to an unprecedented problem.

Failing a Minnesota solution, I doubt the United States Supreme Court will touch the problem, which might kick the election to the US Senate to decide, and if that happens, Coleman is likely to be toast.

Make up your mind Cad.

My mind is made up - follow the rules as established when the ballots were cast. If a ballot is tossed it should not be suddenly counted during a recount as a recount should be a recount of the ballots allowed on election night. So while you likely can not think of every situation that might come up, there should be a way set up in the rules to deal with tossed ballots. At the current time there is NOTHING that suggests they should be allowed in the recount - thus they shouldn't be allowed. Yes yes, if they were "good" ballots they should have been counted in the first place but there is no proceedure for allowing them back in currently. Also, unlike Perknose and some others - I don't happen to think everything is as clean as they'd like to suggest. "finding" ballots and then the thing about not using the recount numbers and instead using election night's numbers? Uh hello? This is a recount - the recount numbers are what is supposed to be counted. You can't pick and choose which result sets you want to use - it's F'n ridiculous.

I think what's ridiculous is that these issues aren't settled yet in voting.

When you buy milk, you don't find the cartons leaking all over on the shelf. You don't see it labelled 'jelly' accidentally.

There are very basic issues in voting that should be reliable, not frequently screwed up.

For one, let's get rid of punch cards, since they're a relic of the earlier efforts to automate, and are so often a source of errors. To replace them? Why not a simple pencil system.

A pencil system is easy to use, hard to screw up, pretty clear when you go and recount the ballots.

If not that, something else - have a panel of experts make recommendations for states as a national standard, and have states choose to use them.

It's a joke for any ballot cast to be unclear on voter intent unless the voter intentionally screws it up.

 

[Jhhnn]

Democrat Al Franken made a big push to include absentee ballots in the recount that were improperly set aside. Minnesota has four legal reasons for rejecting an absentee ballot, but some of the decisions on or before Election Day fell outside those reasons.

Basically, the election board agreed that some ballots had been improperly set aside, because some of the decisions fell outside the 4 reasons an absentee ballot could be rejected.

I seriously doubt that the Minnesota SCOTUS will do anything other than confirm that there are only 4 reasons an absentee ballot can be rejected, giving the clarification the Coleman camp seeks but not the answer they want to hear...

Florida has nothing to do with it, neither does Illinois, despite any efforts to conflate them...

The OP? Trollin' as usual.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Perknose
Only a complete partisan hack like the OP could find serious fault with Minnesota's admirably conscientious and transparent effort to count every legitimate vote, UNLIKE what happened in Florida.

You mean in Florida where the US Supreme Court ruled 7-2 to end the recount because it violated the 14th amendment?

Of course the funny thing is the fact that if the court had done NOTHING then Bush still would have won!!!!

Al Gore lost Florida because of HIS attempt to only recount votes in certain counties. If he had asked for a state wide recount he would have won, but he never asked for one because he apparently only wanted the questionable votes in Democrat counties to count.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: Lemon law
While Cad has a small point in stating, "Actually the first thing should be that all should be counted using the standard set before the ballots were cast, thus not letting the courts or politics sway how things are done during recounts." Sadly, right now, its a been there and done that with the Cad point, what is now lacking is any clear guidelines of how to deal with disputed ballots on both sides that totally dwarfs the current margin of victory. As it is, Franken may well have the current recount lead while the Minnesota canvassing board is unwilling to take a position. So it more or less defaults to the Minnesota supreme court to set Stae wide standards in what amounts to an unprecedented problem.

Failing a Minnesota solution, I doubt the United States Supreme Court will touch the problem, which might kick the election to the US Senate to decide, and if that happens, Coleman is likely to be toast.

Make up your mind Cad.

My mind is made up - follow the rules as established when the ballots were cast. If a ballot is tossed it should not be suddenly counted during a recount as a recount should be a recount of the ballots allowed on election night. So while you likely can not think of every situation that might come up, there should be a way set up in the rules to deal with tossed ballots. At the current time there is NOTHING that suggests they should be allowed in the recount - thus they shouldn't be allowed. Yes yes, if they were "good" ballots they should have been counted in the first place but there is no proceedure for allowing them back in currently. Also, unlike Perknose and some others - I don't happen to think everything is as clean as they'd like to suggest. "finding" ballots and then the thing about not using the recount numbers and instead using election night's numbers? Uh hello? This is a recount - the recount numbers are what is supposed to be counted. You can't pick and choose which result sets you want to use - it's F'n ridiculous.

I think what's ridiculous is that these issues aren't settled yet in voting.

When you buy milk, you don't find the cartons leaking all over on the shelf. You don't see it labelled 'jelly' accidentally.

There are very basic issues in voting that should be reliable, not frequently screwed up.

For one, let's get rid of punch cards, since they're a relic of the earlier efforts to automate, and are so often a source of errors. To replace them? Why not a simple pencil system.

A pencil system is easy to use, hard to screw up, pretty clear when you go and recount the ballots.

If not that, something else - have a panel of experts make recommendations for states as a national standard, and have states choose to use them.

It's a joke for any ballot cast to be unclear on voter intent unless the voter intentionally screws it up.

MN doesn't have punch cards. We have a fill in the circle with a pen system.

Whoops.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Craig234
You call this 'Bush v. Gore 2.0'. You haven't shown any understanding of 1.0 yet, have you?
Yes, Bush won. And he still would have won if they had let Gore finish with his limited recount.

Can you summarize the actual issues? Do you admit wrong by the Justices for Bush?
When they ruled 7-2 in his favor? Or when they ruled 5-4 that there was not enough time to set up a rules and have for a prober recount before the result had to be turned in by law?
And again, if the US court had done NOTHING!!!!! Bush would have won.

You say 'another losing democrat', implying Gore was one. Are you that ignorant of the Gore situation?
Gore LOST. Bush is the President. Gore is some guy making movies and pushing a theory about global warming.

Gore officially won the popular vote. He won the election by the media-funded recount. And there were all kinds of election problems each of which cost him the election, from the badly designed buterfly ballot that hurt him but not Bush, to the low funding in black districts leading to bad machines with far higher rates of votes invalidated than in the white districts, to the voter suppression 'felon lists' with tens of thousands of false matches.
He 'won' the recount only after the counted ballots in EVERY county, not just the counties that Gore wanted counted. Gore LOST because he asked for a limited recount in only certain parts of the state a CLEAR violation of the 14th amendments equal protection clause. Gore has NO ONE to blame but himself and those around him.

Thanks for the post as a chance to rebut you with the truth yet again.
The truth that Gore lost?

Facts to back up what I say.

 

[CrackRabbit]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: Lemon law
While Cad has a small point in stating, "Actually the first thing should be that all should be counted using the standard set before the ballots were cast, thus not letting the courts or politics sway how things are done during recounts." Sadly, right now, its a been there and done that with the Cad point, what is now lacking is any clear guidelines of how to deal with disputed ballots on both sides that totally dwarfs the current margin of victory. As it is, Franken may well have the current recount lead while the Minnesota canvassing board is unwilling to take a position. So it more or less defaults to the Minnesota supreme court to set Stae wide standards in what amounts to an unprecedented problem.

Failing a Minnesota solution, I doubt the United States Supreme Court will touch the problem, which might kick the election to the US Senate to decide, and if that happens, Coleman is likely to be toast.

Make up your mind Cad.

My mind is made up - follow the rules as established when the ballots were cast. If a ballot is tossed it should not be suddenly counted during a recount as a recount should be a recount of the ballots allowed on election night. So while you likely can not think of every situation that might come up, there should be a way set up in the rules to deal with tossed ballots. At the current time there is NOTHING that suggests they should be allowed in the recount - thus they shouldn't be allowed. Yes yes, if they were "good" ballots they should have been counted in the first place but there is no proceedure for allowing them back in currently. Also, unlike Perknose and some others - I don't happen to think everything is as clean as they'd like to suggest. "finding" ballots and then the thing about not using the recount numbers and instead using election night's numbers? Uh hello? This is a recount - the recount numbers are what is supposed to be counted. You can't pick and choose which result sets you want to use - it's F'n ridiculous.

I think what's ridiculous is that these issues aren't settled yet in voting.

When you buy milk, you don't find the cartons leaking all over on the shelf. You don't see it labelled 'jelly' accidentally.

There are very basic issues in voting that should be reliable, not frequently screwed up.

For one, let's get rid of punch cards, since they're a relic of the earlier efforts to automate, and are so often a source of errors. To replace them? Why not a simple pencil system.

A pencil system is easy to use, hard to screw up, pretty clear when you go and recount the ballots.

If not that, something else - have a panel of experts make recommendations for states as a national standard, and have states choose to use them.

It's a joke for any ballot cast to be unclear on voter intent unless the voter intentionally screws it up.

MN doesn't have punch cards. We have a fill in the circle with a pen system.

Whoops.

But even with that you have idiots that couldn't manage to fill them out right.
Go take a look at some of the disputed ballots, sheer lunacy on some of them.
Except the guy who voted for the Lizard People, he is A ok in my book.

 

[umbrella39]

The OP couldn't be more clueless if he tried. Wonders if he even reads the forwarded links he posts?

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
Yes yes, if they were "good" ballots they should have been counted in the first place but there is no proceedure for allowing them back in currently.

The whole idea behind a "recount" is to get those ballots which should have been counted in the first place. This procedure is a fairly common feature on the American political landscape...

Originally posted by: CrackRabbit

But even with that you have idiots that couldn't manage to fill them out right.
Go take a look at some of the disputed ballots, sheer lunacy on some of them.
Except the guy who voted for the Lizard People, he is A ok in my book.

It may not be PC to say so, but if you can't perform as trivial a task as filling in an oval, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Too bad the South screwed up "voter eligibility tests" for the rest of time. I think they're a good idea IF they're fair.

++ for "Lizard people", though.

I THOUGHT ALL REPUBLICANS WERE LIZARD PEOPLE.

Posted by C | November 19, 2008 4:36 PM

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Yes, Bush won. And he still would have won if they had let Gore finish with his limited recount.

No, Bush lost, but you are right that if nothing else was done, by the same measure he 'won', he still would have 'won', by an even small margin, with the limited recount.

With a statewide recout, however, he would have lost, as well as with any of the other problems solved in the election.

You are real proud of the fact that your guy lost when all the ballots are counted, but 'won' if only certain counties are counted fully, just because Gore picked the counties.

Can you summarize the actual issues? Do you admit wrong by the Justices for Bush?
When they ruled 7-2 in his favor? Or when they ruled 5-4 that there was not enough time to set up a rules and have for a prober recount before the result had to be turned in by law?
And again, if the US court had done NOTHING!!!!! Bush would have won.

I'll take that as a no, you can't summarize the actual issues; and had the US Supreme Court allowed the Florida Supreme Court to order a statewide recount, Bush lost.

But the wrong of the US Supreme Court does not rest on the election result, it rests on the actions they took and the reasons they took them, regardless of the election outcome.

However, you may be right, even if you don't know why, insofar as the Republican state legislature was poised to overturn the will of the people and steal the election if needed.

You say 'another losing democrat', implying Gore was one. Are you that ignorant of the Gore situation?
Gore LOST. Bush is the President. Gore is some guy making movies and pushing a theory about global warming.

Gore officially won the popular vote. He won the election by the media-funded recount. And there were all kinds of election problems each of which cost him the election, from the badly designed buterfly ballot that hurt him but not Bush, to the low funding in black districts leading to bad machines with far higher rates of votes invalidated than in the white districts, to the voter suppression 'felon lists' with tens of thousands of false matches.
He 'won' the recount only after the counted ballots in EVERY county, not just the counties that Gore wanted counted. Gore LOST because he asked for a limited recount in only certain parts of the state a CLEAR violation of the 14th amendments equal protection clause. Gore has NO ONE to blame but himself and those around him.

Gore won, and the office was stolen from him and the American people, but not from you, since you put the guy you want ahead of the will of the people and democracy.

You *attack* Gore for his private leadership on global warming? What an evil idiot, it's about as bad as the Republicans *attacking* Gore for his leadership creating the internet.

We really do have brain damaged six year olds who have reached biological adulthood running around.

I get it, you don't care who really won the election, what went wrong, you only care that your guy wins and to try to stifle the truths that show any other issues. You made the point.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

MN doesn't have punch cards. We have a fill in the circle with a pen system.

Whoops.

My post, while in a thread about MN, was making a post about the national issue.

Whoops.

 

[L00PY]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Failing a Minnesota solution, I doubt the United States Supreme Court will touch the problem, which might kick the election to the US Senate to decide, and if that happens, Coleman is likely to be toast.

I'm not sure how this could happen. If the US SCOTUS choses not to intervene, then the rulings of the state court or the lower courts stand. Another branch of government wouldn't step in to decide.

Originally posted by: jagec
It may not be PC to say so, but if you can't perform as trivial a task as filling in an oval, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to vote.

From what I've seen of the recount, it's not necessarily as trivial as you might thing. What happens when you change your mind? Does a "X" through an oval negate that vote? Or what if there's a stray mark in an oval? What about write-ins but with a filled in oval next to a candidate on the ballot?

When you're talking about millions of people filling in an oval, these things are bound to happen.

 

[retrospooty]

Originally posted by: Perknose
Only a complete partisan hack like the OP could find serious fault with Minnesota's admirably conscientious and transparent effort to count every legitimate vote, UNLIKE what happened in Florida.

that would be because... Yes, you guessed it - Once again, its yet another , dem bashing post for Winnar. Each day has at least one. At least he is branching out to other things. usually its just 100% bash Obama and/or his staff.

Originally posted by: Winnar111

Another losing Democrat tries to throw a fuss by counting and recounting votes until they 'find' enough to win.

I am happy to see hating on Obama doesnt fill up 100% of your days. I guess its down to 99%. At least thats an improvement.

I am also happy to know that people that think like you are a minority... and a shrinking one at that. The future looks good (once we can crawl out of the GIANT hole YOUR prez left us in).

 

[chess9]

Originally posted by: winnar111
http://www.kxmb.com/News/309313.asp

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) The Minnesota Supreme Court is getting involved in the state's unsettled U.S. Senate race.

The court said Monday it will weigh whether to stop the sorting and counting of wrongly rejected absentee ballots until clear instructions are handed down.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman petitioned the court to step in after the state board overseeing the recount recommended those ballots be considered last week. Coleman maintains there aren't clear guidelines for the recommendation and could lead to disarray among the 87 counties.

Democrat Al Franken made a big push to include absentee ballots in the recount that were improperly set aside. Minnesota has four legal reasons for rejecting an absentee ballot, but some of the decisions on or before Election Day fell outside those reasons.

The Supreme Court asked the parties to submit arguments in writing by Tuesday in advance of a hearing the next day.



Another losing Democrat tries to throw a fuss by counting and recounting votes until they 'find' enough to win. Sadly these people don't go away.

Democrats are trying to back away from a special election in IL because they might lose it, citing 'cost', but apparently are willing to waste lots of money in MN.

Another losing Republican begs yet another court to help him do what he couldn't do-win an election.

-Robert