Coleman-Franken: Last stop?

Posted at 10:22 AM on June 1, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The Minnesota Supreme Court holds its hearing into Norm Coleman's appeal of Al Franken's apparent victory in the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, starting at 9 a.m. on Monday. I hope you'll join me here for the hearing, and then we'll live-blog the follow-up analysis with Kerri Miller and guests.

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Comments (5)

If the demographic make-up was the same in the rural counties as the urban counties, then one cannot argue geographic un-fairness. I suspect the demographics are not the same so therefore election officials did indeed behave non-equally or fairly.

Posted by mike | June 1, 2009 10:15 AM

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If the shoe was on the other foot Coleman would be ALL OVER Franken to give up. I've watch Coleman since he was a democatic Mayor of Sanit Paul. It's time for a change. Coleman needs to go, he's out of touch with what's going on with the world. Look at his recond. Coleman is just in it for the money, not the people.

Posted by Cindy | June 1, 2009 11:21 AM

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Let's not be unfair. If Coleman were in the lead this case would still be going this far. Franken would fight to the end as well. I just hope that Franken has got some uncounted ballots in his closet to bring up if this is the issue. I'm sure Coleman is not arguing ballots for counties that are not friendly to him.

Posted by Scott | June 1, 2009 4:04 PM

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Hearing both sides argue the case, it became clear in the questioning of Coleman's offer of proof that no evidence was attached to support his claim. That is the crux of this case and clearly Coleman didn't prove his case and is grasping at straws. Coleman listed 600 plus and of those 300 or so were counted. Now he wants 4000. Mn has strict standards for absentee ballots to count. That is a good thing. Officials, and the judicial panel have reviewed these ballots time and again and have said they didn't comply with the law and so cannot be counted. In jurisdictions, where some official came to different results, those standards applied equally to both candidate. Coleman attempts to cloud this case with disenfranchisement. It is about abuse of discretion on part of 3 judge panel. He didn't prove it.

Posted by Susan Conley | June 1, 2009 4:33 PM

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I wonder what it would have taken for Coleman to say "I yield".

A federal-level Republican (not from Minnesota) was quoted a while ago as saying they would never give up. What is an acceptable victory condition?

Counting every single vote, regardless of whether it complies with the state law?

Contrary to what Coleman seems to be urging - No, not every vote deserves to be counted. Some are not following the law. It would be nice if they would all be compliant. But that isn't the case.

And, yes, I'm sure Franken would be at it too, if the position was reversed.

Posted by Elizabeth T | June 1, 2009 9:48 PM

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