Legal Commentary

Powerline Perspective On MN-Sen: Franken Won

By Big Tent Democrat

I have had many a nasty thing or two to say about Powerline in my blogging life, but credit where due to Scott Johnson for a pretty fair appraisal of the Minnesota Senate recount. In an election this close, it really is basically a tie. But you count the votes as best you can. The Franken team was simply better. Johnson writes:

Those who postulate Democratic shenanigans as the cause of Coleman’s difficulties fail to reckon with the December 18 decision of the Minnesota Supreme Court on the inclusion of previously rejected absentee ballots in the recount. The Minnesota Supreme Court held that absentee ballots identified by local officials during the recount as wrongly rejected should be included in the recount subject to agreement of the parties (and also subject to the possibility of sanctions on the parties’ lawyers for withholding agreement in bad faith).

. . . In its December 18 decision, the Minnesota Supreme Court handed Coleman the key to the election. He promptly threw it away. When the absentee ballots were opened and counted at the conclusion of the recount, Franken’s margin climbed from 49 to 225, where it ended. Yesterday, Franken’s margin was amplified by 87 votes deriving from 351 absentee ballots opened in the election-contest proceedings.

I want to stop here for a second because in fact Coleman never had a "key to the election." By Johnson's own account, when the Minnesota Supreme court handed down its December 18 decision, Franken already had a 49 vote lead. What could Johnson be thinking there? Frankly, I think Johnson is arguing that Coleman could have credibly argued for a do over election. I think that was not possible, but he is from Minnesota not I. In any event, Johnson defends the Franken victory and the Minnesota system thusly:

The election-contest court has simply followed Minnesota’s absentee-ballot statute. Arguing, as Coleman has, that a panel of judges should disregard the Minnesota absentee-ballot statute seems like a losing proposition, at least to me. . . . I admire Coleman’s public service and believe he has been an outstanding senator. But since the election, the Coleman campaign has put on a performance that conveys a strong impression of complacency and ineptitude; the Franken campaign outhustled and outsmarted it.

Al Franken is a man with political views as ugly as his jokes are unfunny. . . . I can’t find a single good thing to say about him except that he didn’t steal the election.

Good for Johnson.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 08, 2009 (boomark / email).