On Monday, we reported on former Senator Norm Coleman’s right to challenge the election results in Minnesota which found Al Franken the winner by 225 votes before Franken is officially seated by the Senate.
That is, of course, the appropriate way to allow for election challengers to have their day in court, without nearly-insurmountable prejudice being stacked against them by having their opponent already seated. Incredibly enough, that’s not the way most states do it, as most send officially certified results to Congress — effectively, and Constitutionally, according to judicial precedent, handing jurisdiction of the seating of the member to a partisan Congress, robbing voters and local courts of having the final say — before legal election contests are fully settled.
On Tuesday, Coleman filed his expected election contest in state court, which Franken’s attorneys memorably described as “the same thin gruel, warmed-over leftovers … that they have been serving the last few weeks.”
We’ve been on the road since the complaint was filed, and haven’t had time to review the 204-page suit [PDF] ourselves, but thankfully, TPM’s Eric Kleefeld has done so, and reports it as “a marvelous thing”…
Kleefeld goes on to quickly summarize the key points in the complaint, all of which — at least based on his rather amusing descriptions — seem, indeed, to be “thin gruel” and “warmed-over leftovers”. All seven or so of his points are well worth the consice read. Here’s just one example:
Coleman claims that multiple precincts had “more votes than voters,” a potential irregularity if we understand that as being more ballots than people who signed in on the register. But Coleman has another definition: When the votes tallied in the recount were more than were counted on Election Night, with no reference to what was on the voter register. The whole point of a recount is to find votes that the machines failed to pick up at first.
Coleman deserves his day in court, as we’ve said. He does not, however, deserve an abuse of the system. So let’s hope the courts move quickly and decisively in this matter and rule wisely on just complaints while swiftly dismissing those without merit, so that MN can get the representation it deserves — whoever that may be — as soon as possible.
LOL – I see once again the phrase “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.” It seems that this has been standard operating procedure for the GOP since Democrats took control of Congress. It certainly was the M.O. of the McPain camPAIN.
I still can’t get over how exquisitely sour Coleman looks in that mug shot. Beautiful. (But I am glad he gets his day in court.)
“Thin gruel”, lol. An expression my uncle used to use.
I miss the Tundra State, not for its weather tho.
“Incredibly enough, that’s not the way most state’s do it…” Yo. I paid good money for this thing.
CBB – If you are commenting on Brad errant apostrophe, you should know that out of all the blogs I read, Brad’s is hands-down the most error-free, grammatically and otherwise. If you were a frequent reader, I would expect you to know that. Everyone slips once in a while, and someone as prolific a writer as Brad, who I’m assuming does all of his own proofreading, is going to let the ball drop once in a while…a long, long, while. I honestly can’t remember more five times that I’ve caught an error in the five years I’ve been reading BB…and I’m someone who notices them also.
So if that was your point…lay off.
If you had some other point, perhaps you could make it clear.
So why is Coleman doing this? Isn’t that the question. His chances of changing the outcome are slim. Not only will it cost him a lot of money but if it turns out he still doesn’t get his seat back, then he has been forever branded as a bad loser. What’s in it for him?
One might think there is some Republican political advantage in the Senate by reducing the number of Democrats by one. Is this possible? Surely this is not Norm’s decision alone.