On August 10, five television stations in Minnesota filed a lawsuit in state court, against Ramsey County election officials. Those officials refuse to let the TV stations examine last year’s general election absentee ballots. The TV stations want to analyze why several hundred absentee ballots were rejected by the county. The lawsuit is KSTP-TV v Ramsey County, 2nd judicial district, 62-cv-09-9240.
After the disputed 2000 presidential election, news media were able to examine all the Florida ballots. A consortium of news organizations spent almost a year recounting them all.
its simple…..those absentee ballots would give Norm Coleman back his Senate Seat
Anyone who wants to should be able to examine the ballots. However, don’t delude yourself that Coleman is getting back his seat, anymore than Gore got the Presidency following the media’s count. The election is over and Franken is the Senator and no media count (or anything else) will change that.
San Diego County [California] has gone thru a new Elections top official every 20 months or so ……
—– Donald Raymond Lake,
Citizens For A Better Veterans Home
Actually Coleman could get the seat back if a certified affidavit says the exclusion of those ballots altered the outcome of the race. At the least he could tie it up leaving the seat vacant for any length of time. But thats only if the excluded ballots are found to have overwhelmingly changed the count. Be a nice little voter fraud case at least.
#4-I believe you are incorrect. A seated Senator can only be removed by the votes of 2/3 of the Senate. There is no provision for any judge, including the SCOTUS, to remove elected officials once they are seated. As I said, I think the ballots should be open to public view, but any count will be of historical interest only.
thats not so……the Senate can only remove seated Senators for perjury/ethics violations voter fraud is another case; voter fraud is a criminal offence that only a FEDERAL judge can oversee. Granted to make a case of it; itd have to be proved that Franken or his campaign was directly involved in keeping votes from being counted; and if that was done and Franken was committed of the crime; hed lose the seat automatically due to a felony conviction
OK, sure; if he was convicted of a felony, he would lose his seat. But arguing in court as to which ballots should or shouldn’t be counted, which is what both campaigns did, is hardly voter fraud, nor did anyone from the Coleman side allege fraud. And the Minnesota courts reviewed the count 3x and found no fraud. And the Governor (a Republicam) certified the election.
All a panel of journalists could do is review the ballots and say that in their opinion Coleman won or Franken won. It would have no more legal validity than the count by newspapers that said Gore won Florida in 2000. As I recall, Bush remained in office despite that and was even re-elected.
Granted a recount would only add to history and no help right now but that same history will be important in the next election.