Franken Lawyer Undermines Coleman's Claims Of Double-Counting
Al Franken's legal team been cross-examining Ramsey County (St. Paul) elections director Joe Mansky, making up some solid ground after Coleman's lawyers scored some points this past Friday.
Franken attorney Kevin Hamilton went over Mansky's opinion on Friday, affirming the likelihood of absentee ballots being double-counted thanks to a duplication process for damaged ballots, and a failure to label some of them properly. This error, to the extent that it might have happened, would result in an unfair gain for Al Franken because of his own overall edge in absentee ballots -- and the fact that the Coleman campaign has confined this line of inquiry to a handful of deep-blue precincts in the Twin Cities.
But Hamilton was able to secure from Mansky an agreement that any number of other factors can cause an apparent surplus of votes.
For example, absentee ballots might have been sent to the wrong precinct on Election Day, but would have only been counted and added into the correct precinct's totals during the recount -- and wouldn't have been added to the precinct roster. Or the overworked precinct election judges might have failed to mark off on the roster that a particular person had cast their vote by absentee, thus causing an apparent surplus of accepted absentee ballots.
Hamilton got Mansky to agree that it would certainly be a bad thing to jump to conclusions that there was double-counting -- against all the internal safeguards that the duplication process itself contains -- and throw out votes.
"And again, if we don't count them, then those voters would be disenfranchised," said Hamilton.
"That's right," said Mansky.
This is a very important point for the Franken camp to be making. The Coleman camp needs the double-counting issue to be an easy, cut and dried thing that can be corrected by simply going through the spreadsheets and chopping off excess votes. But if it turns out that an apparent excess vote total doesn't really represent a surplus of votes, then the burden of proof becomes much higher in any instance where Coleman wants to start subtracting from Franken's column.
Josh
Elana
Matt
Eric
Coleman's problem here is that even if you concede that some votes were double counted, there's no way of knowing WHICH ONES. What does he propose they do, arbitrarily deduct votes from Franken? Come to think if it, that's probably exactly what Coleman wants. Logic is not a part of it.
February 2, 2009 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
He wants a do-over. He thinks he's going to get all the Blankely (sp?) votes. He doesn't realize how much all of this makes him look unhinged.
February 2, 2009 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Norm Coleman Declares Himself the Winner in the Iraqi Elections
http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=5895
February 2, 2009 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's amazing how complicated this has become. I thought an election was a contest where people voted, the votes are counted, and the candidate who gets the most votes wins. How in the world so many shades of grey have materialized is a mystery to me.
February 2, 2009 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem here is that no voting system is capable of perfect accuracy. And once we're down to a margin like this, the level of uncertainty starts to matter and thus confidence in the whole system breaks down.
February 2, 2009 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eric makes an important point to keep in mind while reading these stories.
The standard for elections is NOT perfection. The judges hearing this case know that mistakes will be made when hundreds of thousands of votes are counted. What Coleman needs to get the official results overturned is a compelling story about how it is likely that he is the actual winner, but for a number of errors that can be reasonable fixed.
From what I'm reading, Coleman seems to only be showing that if something was done differently, he may or may not pick up votes. I can imagine an election count being overturned on something so speculative.
February 2, 2009 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ward, Did you mean to say "I *CANNOT* imagine an election count being overturned on something so speculative.
February 2, 2009 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's dangerous for anyone to comment on state election law who doesn't have a great deal of expertise, and I don't, but in cases of judicial review of administrative actions generally, the court is supposed to look only at whether the administrative body abused its discretion or erred in some obvious way. The purpose of judicial review isn't necessarily to re-do the work of the agency, just confirm it or, if necessary, reject it. Most agencies get a lot of deference in this process because courts regard them as the experts, and that goes for elections to zoning boards.
It would be easy under that standard for the court in this case to say to anything Coleman presents, "Well, that's interesting but not enough."
February 2, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Human behavior is not exact.
Statistics is not exact
This carried over a million transactions adds up
This carried over another million votes and it adds up more.
This is why the burden of proof to show systemic and outright errors on the loser is key. The recount is the standard and now Coleman has to show huge discrepancies, not a possible one.
This is nothing but a delay tactic going back to the Obama Agenda. Don't you all think the GOP leadership the possibility was that Gregg would consider a cabinet post? Even if Lynch does the smart thing and appoints an Independent and that Independent or Snowe-like GOP caucuses with the Republicans that does not diminish it is filibuster busting or filibuster proof. But with Franken seated it brings the margin to the thinest possible.
There will be a price to pay for the Regional Obstruction Party formerly known as the Republican. I think the irony is once an African American was elected President and an African American was elected Party Chair the Party that was made up of the Free Soilers, Whigs, Abolitionists, and anti immigration movement is now being split apart from old segregationalists, neo-con's, libertarians, Federalists, Paleo-con's, fiscal-con's, and Religious Right.
With Ted Haggard now coming out and advocating gay marriage, neo-con's on the run over Crimes Against Humanity, Fiscal-con's nationalizing the banks, liberarians seeing govt grow to save society, et cetera and more and more Senators saying retirement the party is shrinking to the same fate as the Whigs.
February 2, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink