US Senate Decides Minnesota Election? Franken vs. Coleman

I thought this election was decided by the people of Minnesota a long time ago...this is what Americans would have suffered if Obama had not won. Tell Franken to get his thumb out of his mouth and get over it!

Go back to Saturday Night Live, Franken. that's your maximum level of competence. Are you trying to be like Gore and keep recounting until you get the numbers you want? Go home.

i don't understand why the absentee ballots were rejected...

come on Franken!

ttigar - Coleman hasn't won yet. It was bad form on his part to act as though he has. The recount is legally mandated in such a close race. Get over it yourself, pal.

FYI "reason" - Al Franken doesn't decide what gets counted or not - the boe does based on Minnesota LAW.

If I lived in Minn and voted for this ass hole Franken I wouldn't admit it. Their must be something in the water in that state.

i never said that Franken should be allowed to determine which ballots are counted snarky....but in an effort to count every vote that a citizen cast ...i don't understand why the absentee ballots are not looked at again?

snarky

Do I hear 40 Senate Republicans knocking? Remember, the founders did not want legislation to be easy. In fact, they wanted it to be infrequent and difficult.

Totalitarian governments have no trouble enacting laws, it is designed to be more difficult in the American democratic republic.

Dave is conflating two separate reports here, which combined raise three or four different issues. The UPI report says that Reid is considering a challenge to the results, mostly based on the decision about absentee ballots. But there are at least two steps to come in the absentee ballot issue before it gets near the Senate. As the Star-Tribune article points out (but neither the UPI nor Dave does), while the Canvassing Board rejected a wholesale count of all rejected absentee ballots, it left open the possibility of considering individual ballots. This may result in counting of some or all of the "fifth pile" ballots, i.e. those that didn't fall under any of MN's four legal reasons for rejecting an absentee ballot, so they may in fact have been rejected in error. This is a relatively small fraction of the total number of rejected absentee ballots, but of course Franken only has a relatively small number of votes to make up. Furthermore, Franken may still sue in state court seeking to overturn the Canvassing Board's decision and get all the rejected absentee ballots reviewed, if not necessarily all counted. (Most were probably rejected for proper reasons.)

The Star-Tribune article, though as noted it does mention the absentee ballot issue, is primarily about ballot challenges. As everyone has noted, the overwhelming majority of these challenges seem to be "frivolous" (or rather, "Let's leave no stone unturned, however unlikely") and likely to be rejected. Still, Coleman has challenged significantly more than Franken, and while "the outcome of past election disputes" may suggest that "Franken will have a hard time" having enough of his challenges accepted (or enough more than Coleman), the 6% figure doesn't seem to me to be beyond possibility.

In any case, as Dave points out, its unlikely the Senate will ultimately decide this. The only time I recall the Senate coming close to doing so rather than "deferr[ing] to the state" was the the 1974 NH race, where basically the state itself didn't know who the f*** had won. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Durkin.) The initial count had the Republican (Wyman) ahead by 355 votes, the first recount had the Democrat (Durkin) ahead by 10 votes, and the second recount had Wyman ahead by 2. Durkin then appealed to the Senate, but they deadlocked on all 35 of the "disputed points" that the Rules Committee reported. So even there, the Senate ultimately "deferred to the state," namely Wyman proposed a special election, which Durkin won.

Nonetheless, however "unfair" it might seem to the people of Minnesota, the Constitution does make the Senate the judge of its own elections. (Likewise the House.) But they're understandably reluctant to use that power even (or especially?) when candidates ask them to. Reid may be "threatening" such a move in order to pressure MN to get its act together, but I doubt that it would get very far if he actually tried it, and I suspect that he knows that. (For one thing, the Republicans could filibuster it, no? Or doesn't the cloture rule apply to this sort of issue?)

Norm Coleman won this SENATE SEAT! Not FRANKEN! But the U.S. Senate will do anything to make sure they steal this election. The dems, the DNC, THE DEMOCRATIC ELECTORS, THE SEC. OF STATE, HOWARD DEAN and the rest of OBAMA's team all know that OBAMA was born in KENYA, HIS FATHER WAS BORN IN KENYA and that makes OBAMA AN ILLEGAL CANDIDATE AND ILLEGAL PRESIDENT UNDER THE NATURAL BORN CLAUSE OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION!! KENYA WAS UNDER BRITISH RULE AND THEREFORE, OBAMA SR.'s CHILDREN ARE BRITISH CITIZENS! PERIOD. OBAMA, PROVIDE YOUR VAULT BIRTH CERTIFICIATE NOT YOUR CERTIFICATION OF LIVE BIRTH AND END THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!!!! YOU HAVE HAD SINCE AUGUST 21, 2008. AND YOU HAVE LIED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE BY SHOWING THEM YOUR COLB (CERTIFICATION OF LIVE BIRTH) WHICH IS FAKE, TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE! PROVE YOU ARE A "NATURAL BORN USA CITIZEN". PROVIDE YOUR VAULT BIRTH CERTIFICATE. YOU CAN'T. YOU WERE NOT BORN IN HAWAII!!!! TELL THE TRUTH!!!!!