The Minnesota recount was unconstitutional

[stephanie]

nothing to see here, just Democrats trying to steal another election.

By MICHAEL STOKES PAULSEN
You would think people would learn. The recount in the contest between Norm Coleman and Al Franken for a seat in the U.S. Senate isn't just embarrassing. It is unconstitutional.


This is Florida 2000 all over again, but with colder weather. Like that fiasco, Minnesota's muck of a process violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, the controlling Supreme Court decision is none other than Bush v. Gore.

Remember Florida? Local officials conducting recounts could not decide what counted as a legal vote. Hanging chads? Dimpled chads? Should "under votes" count (where a machine failed to read an incompletely-punched card)? What about "overvotes" (where voters punched more than one hole)? Different counties used different standards; different precincts within counties were inconsistent.

The Florida Supreme Court intervened and made things worse, ordering a statewide recount of some types of rejected ballots but not others. It specified no standards for what should count as a valid vote, leaving the judgment to each county. And it ordered partial recounts already conducted in some counties (but not others) included in the final tabulation. The result was chaos.


By a vote of 7-2, Bush v. Gore (2000) ruled that Florida's recount violated the principle that all votes must be treated uniformly. Applying precedents dating to the 1960s, the Court found that the Equal Protection Clause meant that ballots must be treated so as to give every vote equal weight. A state may not, by "arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another." Florida's lack of standards produced "unequal evaluation of ballots in several respects." The state's supreme court "ratified this uneven treatment" and created more of its own, and was unconstitutional.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1231...s_opinion_main

[bullypulpit]

nothing to see here, just Democrats trying to steal another election.

By MICHAEL STOKES PAULSEN
You would think people would learn. The recount in the contest between Norm Coleman and Al Franken for a seat in the U.S. Senate isn't just embarrassing. It is unconstitutional.


This is Florida 2000 all over again, but with colder weather. Like that fiasco, Minnesota's muck of a process violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, the controlling Supreme Court decision is none other than Bush v. Gore.

Remember Florida? Local officials conducting recounts could not decide what counted as a legal vote. Hanging chads? Dimpled chads? Should "under votes" count (where a machine failed to read an incompletely-punched card)? What about "overvotes" (where voters punched more than one hole)? Different counties used different standards; different precincts within counties were inconsistent.

The Florida Supreme Court intervened and made things worse, ordering a statewide recount of some types of rejected ballots but not others. It specified no standards for what should count as a valid vote, leaving the judgment to each county. And it ordered partial recounts already conducted in some counties (but not others) included in the final tabulation. The result was chaos.


By a vote of 7-2, Bush v. Gore (2000) ruled that Florida's recount violated the principle that all votes must be treated uniformly. Applying precedents dating to the 1960s, the Court found that the Equal Protection Clause meant that ballots must be treated so as to give every vote equal weight. A state may not, by "arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another." Florida's lack of standards produced "unequal evaluation of ballots in several respects." The state's supreme court "ratified this uneven treatment" and created more of its own, and was unconstitutional.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1231...s_opinion_main

The recount was triggered under Minnesota law because of the closeness of the initial results. Mr. Paulsen's editorial is simply sour grapes.

[DannyR]

Let Minnesota law sort it out. No need to pull the Supreme Court into this case.

[Silver]

You obviously don't grasp the point of the article....
no one disputes that the recount was triggered by law....

Remember Florida? Local officials conducting recounts could not decide what counted as a legal vote. Hanging chads? Dimpled chads? Should "under votes" count (where a machine failed to read an incompletely-punched card)? What about "overvotes" (where voters punched more than one hole)? Different counties used different standards; different precincts within counties were inconsistent.

The Florida Supreme Court intervened and made things worse, ordering a statewide recount of some types of rejected ballots but not others. It specified no standards for what should count as a valid vote, leaving the judgment to each county. And it ordered partial recounts already conducted in some counties (but not others) included in the final tabulation. The result was chaos.


The point being the standards of what constitutes a valid ballot....rejected one time and then accepted another time....
accepted for one candidate but not valid for the other candidate....

leaving the judgment of what ballots are counted to the whims of the counters without a uniform standard...

Its amounts to Democrats stealing the election for their guy...obvious to anyone with an open, unprejudiced perspective....

[stephanie]

The recount was triggered under Minnesota law because of the closeness of the initial results. Mr. Paulsen's editorial is simply sour grapes.

would that be like those sour grapes you all been spitting out over the Bush election..

[Joe Steel]

...

The point being the standards of what constitutes a valid ballot....rejected one time and then accepted another time....
accepted for one candidate but not valid for the other candidate....

leaving the judgment of what ballots are counted to the whims of the counters without a uniform standard...

Are you suggesting the US implement nationwide standards for ballots and votes?

[bullypulpit]

Are you suggesting the US implement nationwide standards for ballots and votes?

That would be the sensible thing to do, but then the state's rights weenies would be screaming bloody murder. And, as we've seen, when the votes actually are counted, Democrats are usually the winners.

would that be like those sour grapes you all been spitting out over the Bush election..

Actually, no. Bush partisans did everything they could to impede and intimidate the Florida canvassing board and its members. But that's all water under the bridge...Shrub is on his way out the door after having crapped the bed and spending the last eight years rolling around in it, figuratively speaking, and leaving the mess for someone else to clean up. Funny, he did the same thing in Texas.

You obviously don't grasp the point of the article....
no one disputes that the recount was triggered by law....

Remember Florida? Local officials conducting recounts could not decide what counted as a legal vote. Hanging chads? Dimpled chads? Should "under votes" count (where a machine failed to read an incompletely-punched card)? What about "overvotes" (where voters punched more than one hole)? Different counties used different standards; different precincts within counties were inconsistent.

The Florida Supreme Court intervened and made things worse, ordering a statewide recount of some types of rejected ballots but not others. It specified no standards for what should count as a valid vote, leaving the judgment to each county. And it ordered partial recounts already conducted in some counties (but not others) included in the final tabulation. The result was chaos.


The point being the standards of what constitutes a valid ballot....rejected one time and then accepted another time....
accepted for one candidate but not valid for the other candidate....

leaving the judgment of what ballots are counted to the whims of the counters without a uniform standard...

Its amounts to Democrats stealing the election for their guy...obvious to anyone with an open, unprejudiced perspective....

The Minnesota canvassing board was hardly partisan. It consisted of two Republicans, one Democrat and two Independents. As for the Minnesota supreme court in its ruling on the matter, it is dominated by Republicans and conservative ones at that. So their decision in Franken's favor can't really be considered partisan politics.

The most entertaining aspect of Franken's election will be watching Bill O'Reilly's head explode the first time he says "Senator Al Franken"...

[Silver]

That would be the sensible thing to do, but then the state's rights weenies would be screaming bloody murder. And, as we've seen, when the votes actually are counted, Democrats are usually the winners.



Actually, no. Bush partisans did everything they could to impede and intimidate the Florida canvassing board and its members. But that's all water under the bridge...Shrub is on his way out the door after having crapped the bed and spending the last eight years rolling around in it, figuratively speaking, and leaving the mess for someone else to clean up. Funny, he did the same thing in Texas.



The Minnesota canvassing board was hardly partisan. It consisted of two Republicans, one Democrat and two Independents. As for the Minnesota supreme court in its ruling on the matter, it is dominated by Republicans and conservative ones at that. So their decision in Franken's favor can't really be considered partisan politics.

1 Dim and 2 Ind. = 3 Liberals/2 Repubs....= Partisan
Cons on SC recused themselves and Page decided the recount was on the up and up....the recount stunk to high heaven...

The most entertaining aspect of Franken's election will be watching Bill O'Reilly's head explode the first time he says "Senator Al Franken"...

Bullshit...
Whatever standards Minnesota uses must be applied uniformly, consistently, and under clear standards not admitting of local variation. Discrepancies between machine counts and hand recounts, and between numbers of recorded votes and signed-in voters, however resolved, must be resolved the same way throughout the state.

The standards for evaluating rejected absentee ballots likewise must be uniform, with decisions made according to legal standards, not by partisan campaigns. If the Minnesota Supreme Court fails to assure these things, the matter could go right up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Consider the inconsistencies: One county "found" 100 new votes for Mr. Franken, due to an asserted clerical error. Decision? Add them. Ramsey County (St. Paul) ended up with 177 more votes than were recorded election day. Decision? Count them. Hennepin County (Minneapolis, where I voted -- once, to my knowledge) came up with 133 fewer votes than were recorded by the machines. Decision? Go with the machines' tally. All told, the recount in 25 precincts ended up producing more votes than voters who signed in that day.

Then there's Minnesota's (first, so far) state Supreme Court decision, Coleman v. Ritchie, decided by a vote of 3-2 on Dec. 18. (Two justices recused themselves because they were members of the state canvassing board.) While not as bad as Florida's interventions, the Minnesota Supreme Court ordered local boards to count some previously excluded absentee ballots but not others. Astonishingly, the court left the decision as to which votes to count to the two competing campaigns and forbade local election officials to correct errors on their own.
-------------------------------------
Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, but Magnuson recused himself from picking the 3 judge panel that will decide Colemans complaint, because he sat on the state canvassing board.
That leaves Ass. Justice Alan Page, a Democrat, to pick the panel that will Coleman...he don't have a chance....

END RESULT...= stolen election by the Dims