Al Franken | 04/14/2009 9:55 am
Court: Al Franken Wins Minnesota Senate Race
AP
To those of us outside Minnesota, the aftermath of the Senate election there is beginning to seem a little like a "Saturday Night Live" skit. No sooner does a court declare former "SNL" player and Democrat Al Franken the winner than Republican opponent Norm Coleman vows to fight on. It’s like a carousel of political drama. And it shows no sign of slowing.
A three-judge panel ruled yesterday that Al Franken’s lead of 312 votes should stand and unanimously rejected Norm Coleman’s legal argument that the vote count had not been conducted unfairly. The judges insisted that Franken "received the highest number of votes legally cast and is therefore entitled to receive the certificate of the election."
The judges were very clear that they thought Coleman’s argument — that many rejected votes should have been counted — had no merit. They stated that Coleman’s position "would lead to an absurd result."
That doesn’t mean Coleman won’t appeal. He will. And a decision from the Minnesota Supreme Court will come no sooner than May.
If they don’t rule in his favor, Coleman can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but at that point he’ll have to decide if that’s his best course of action politically.
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76 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
Libra L — Yet ANOTHER Democrat who "made an honest mistake". Maybe he’ll skip being a senator and go to work for TImmy G!
Ya just can’t make up this stuff!
Or maybe you want to keep things current and talk about how he is working for lobbyists these days.
caj p — Reminds we of another election — What was his name - oh yeah, Al Gore. Just couldn’t give it up! Good lord where is the mantra now - "let every vote be counted" — "let’s tie this up forever" - "let’s send in the National Guard" - "Let’s send in 50 scillion lawyers to count and re-count" - "Let’s make sure all those ‘chads’ are checked" - "Hanging chads, hanging chads and more hanging chads" — "They didn’t count correctly in South Florida, let’s move the boxes to Tallahassee" - Let’s tie up the courts in Florida for months" - "Let’s make sure the media hangs around and put out 50 reports a day" - "The Florida Supreme Court is wrong" - "The Supreme Court had it wrong" - "The election was stolen" - and, again, "Every vote should be counted" over and over.
We, in Florida said the same thing — "Move on Al, you tried and tried and it didn’t work and the State of Florida was sick of it!
What is it with those Dems?
You folks on the right know all about that word that’s for sure!!!
You mean: what is it with those reps? This time they are the ones fishing for votes in the rejected ballot pool. You had Al Gore, we have Norm Coleman. The difference is, we finished the recount. We know who won, and it wasn’t Norm.