Coleman was a dumbass to allow himself to get pushed around. He should have been a stickler about allowing any ballots in during the recount and when it looked like ballots from Dem counties were going to come in, he should have immediately insisted that the same categories of ballots from other counties also be counted. Coleman et al. were dumb and weak. So, the inclination is to say it is his own fault, but that is not the issue with the equal protection argument. The rights of the VOTERS were violated — by the board with the connivance of Coleman. Just because Coleman agreed to it does not mean rights were not violated. However an interesting legal issue is whether this violation can be raised by Coleman — a participant in the violation. It is sort of like the murderer of his parents asking for mercy as an orphan. Maybe the challenge needs to be brought by one of the absentee voters whose ballot was disallowed.

…violated his constitutional right to equal protection — even though he, Franken and their lawyers agreed to standards used in the recount…

We are not talking about Coleman’s equal protection rights. We are talking about the rights of the voters. Since when can the stupid decisions of Coleman’s dumb lawyers compromise the constitutional rights of thousands of Minn. voters?

Yeah I can see how pulling a 100 votes that go all to one person out of the trunk of my car and having more votes than voters in a precinct can be consider equality of treatment and a valid identifiably confirmed win for the originally annouced loser of this game. Of course Norm will lose. Why shouldn’t he? And why should Republicans want to drag out this inevitability and stand on principal if the centrist guy can become Governor of the state?

Dumba$$es!!

This was a federal election, and under our Constitution every voter is supposed to be treated the same. The very fact that different counties counted ballots differently is why this is a very good Equal Protection argument.

Someone previously stated that it was ok because both candidates were treated the same in each county. Wrong! That means each individuals vote was not treated the same. Plus there is still bias. For instance the counties that did not follow the rules and accepted everything just so happen to be the counties where Franken had an advantage. The counties more favorable to Coleman held strictly to the standards set up and thus fewer Coleman votes came through.

And let’ not forget all the duplicate ballots, where the counties were supposed to set aside and mark “duplicate”, but they didn’t and they got tossed into the results. That’s why in some Franken counties you had more votes (100’s) then actual registered voters.

This is a very good “Equal Protection” case, and with the money that Coleman continues to bring in, he is not going to quit!

[Legal experts] want to see a final decision from those same trial court judges on Coleman’s claim that the state’s absentee ballot counting process, which differed county-to-county, violated his constitutional right to equal protection — even though he, Franken and their lawyers agreed to standards used in the recount…

I am pretty sure that it is legally irrelevant whether either candidate (or their attorneys) agreed to the standards. Neither one has a right to re-write the law (which includes judicial precedent) after the fact. This was the EXACT same basis for Bush v Gore. It is a federal Fourteenth Amendment issue and it is controlled by U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

Why would ANYONE quit while holding a winning issue? Only if that person is a RINO who is trying to pull a McCain.

Wethal on April 7, 2009 at 6:41 PM

You’re just saying that the standards were applied differently from county to county. That doesn’t mean that invalid ballots were counted. Is there any reason to believe this? And it certainly doesn’t mean that there was any bias toward Coleman, which is the main issue.

As for the 11,000 other ballots, that’s also a separate issue.

In any case, my question is why Ed and others believe that the absentee ballots that were opened and counted during the recount were invalid. Both campaigns agreed that they were valid.

At this point he painted himself into a corner that if he wants to have any future in politics he needs to concede because even if he’s right he’s not going to be Senator now for this term.

When Coleman had the slim lead immediately after the election, he declared that if he were Franken, he “would step back” and concede defeat for the good of Minnesota.

step back, norm.

sesquipedalian on April 7, 2009 at 5:52 PM

Gee. I wonder what changed his mind? You suppose it might have been those ballots conveniently found stuffed in the trunk of a car?

There’s a big difference between respecting a fair vote you lost, and respecting fraudulent votes dredged out of back rooms and cars.

Bottom line: Minnesota had many good, clean election laws that were supposed to ensure this kind of fraud didn’t happen. If those laws had been followed, and Coleman lost, too bad. It happens. But when those laws were NOT followed, you get this.

It’s the fraud that makes people’s blood boil.

If this drags on without any realistic chance of victory, the Democrats get red meat for their narrative of the GOP as an obstructionist “party of no” and the likelihood of a months-long reprisal court challenge from the left (in Tedisco’s House race, maybe?) will rise.

With regard to point 1, since when has the existence or non-existence of truth matter for the ‘Rat narrative. With regard to point 2, you mean that the likelyhood of a challenge in NY-20 will go up from 100% to 110%?

When this first started, Pawlenty did nothing to help Coleman and in fact made some issues worse by trying to be Mr. Bi-Partisan and throw his support behind the AG who was most certainly in the tank. While Coleman’s campaign was weak, the post-election tactic by the entire Minnesota GOP was pathetic.

The only upside – knocking Senate control out of Democratic hands and leaving Franken to wallow in a minority. That would be fitting of his bad karma.

Doctor Zero on April 7, 2009 at 6:00 PM

Lucid as usual. Dr. Zero. Elections nationwide are not believable. I propose that even the 2008 national election was stolen. Military ballots were uncounted, illegal voters, more fraud, and miscounting votes. All in one direction — Democratic. We will never really know, due to media disinterest and coverups by Democratic office-holders.

Note that in 2000, an extensive analysis of votes funded by the media (Inc. the Washington Post) in critical counties of Florida showed that Bush clearly won. The recount cost over a million dollars. The Post put this on page 18, and WP reporters and columnist, to this day, refuse to acknowledge the true data.

A plan would be for the GOP to analyze differences in election day returns from final returns. Publish the names and affiliations of election officals responsible for the difference. It’s a start. What is the statue of limitations for election fraud, anyway?

if history is a guide, even actors and comedians turn out to be first-rate politicians sometimes. franken is in pretty decent company.

The only one I can think of is Reagan. Who are these many actors/comedians you’re referring to?