Coleman Flips Yet Again: Wants Ballots Tossed He Said Were Legit

[babylonsister]

Coleman Changes Position Yet Again, Now Wants To Throw Out Already-Counted Ballots He Said Were Legal
By Eric Kleefeld - February 20, 2009, 11:31AM


The Coleman campaign has just filed a very interesting motion in the election trial, changing their position for the fourth or fifth time on whether to count rejected absentee ballots -- and demanding that votes they've already stipulated as legal should be thrown out.

A review of the back-story is necessary. You might remember that the campaigns agreed during a statewide review of rejected absentee ballots that a group of 933 ballots were in fact legal and should be counted. Those ballots were counted on January 3, and they gave Al Franken a net gain of 176 votes. The Coleman campaign then started crying foul that some of these votes were really illegal and had to be thrown out.

When those votes were counted, numbers were affixed to the ballot envelopes and the ballots themselves, a just-in-case measure for if they would have to be thrown out again later on. Coleman later dropped this claim, and the election court's order to formalize this also commanded the Secretary of State's office to erase those numbers, in order to protect the secret ballot.

But now Coleman wants an order to stop the erasures, and to declare that some of these votes must be identified and thrown out. (ed. note: It is now too late to completely do this. See late update below.)

So Coleman was originally against counting them, then for it, then against it, then for it, and now against it, in that order.

more...

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/coleman-changes-position-yet-again-now-wants-to-throw-out-already-counted-ballots-he-said-were-legal.php

[EFerrari]

1. I hope he continues to piss off the court so they will close this out

and then Senator Franken can take his seat.

:woohoo:

What a great year for Democrats!

[CreekDog]

2. Coleman's overall strategy: spoil the election completely by creating contradictory rulings

within it.

:rant:

[BootinUp]

3. Will the judges put an end to this fiasco now?

for crise sakes.

[graywarrior]

4. Repulbicans want him to keep this going to prevent another dem vote

in the senate.

[gratuitous]

5. Coleman doesn't care

As long as he can keep bringing things up, even items already ruled on, he keeps the matter alive. Under Minnesota's laws, as long as any challenge, no matter how spurious, is still being sorted out, the winner can't be certified and seated. There's no provisional seating of the prospective winner, and no penalty for an unscrupulous loser who just keeps stringing things along. I don't think the legislature contemplated such dishonesty in a defeated candidate, but Coleman's example should be getting some attention from the legislaure to change their law.

[Gman]

6. Coleman is rather blatantly jerking the court around

"But this could have impact in another way: Their legal reasoning would lead one to the conclusion that the whole vote-count number is tainted."

This is their whole intent.