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The Minnesota Senate Recount

By Jack M. Balkin

Fellow Balkinization blogger Michael Stokes Paulsen has the following legal analysis about the Minnesota Senate recount in today's Wall Street Journal, see here. Here is a brief excerpt from the op-ed:

But as matters stand now, the Minnesota recount is a legal train wreck. The result, a narrow Franken lead, is plainly invalid. Just as in Bush v. Gore, the recount has involved "unequal evaluation of ballots in several respect" and failed to provide "minimal procedural safeguards" of equal treatment of all ballots. Legally, it does not matter which candidate benefited from all these differences in treatment. (Mr. Franken did.) The different treatment makes the results not only unreliable (and suspicious), but unconstitutional.

Full post as published by Balkinization on January 15, 2009 (boomark / email).