What is striking to me is that Coleman seems to completely ignore the difference between a recount and an election contest. In a recount, the canvassing boards are taking a completely new (i.e., de novo) look at the ballots. That's not what happens in an election contest; the court doesn't just re-do everything. Instead, the court defers to the canvassing boards and sets aside their results only if the contestant proves that there were abuses of discretion or sufficiently serious discrepancies. Coleman completely ignores this distinction and seems to assert that the court should have taken a fresh look at the ballots with no deference at all to the canvassing boards. Like you, I doubt that this will be a winning argument for Coleman before the MNSCT.

That said, I highly doubt that the MNSCT would impose sanctions. An argument has to be ridiculously bad before courts will take that step. Even when the argument is ridiculously bad, courts still don't seem to impose sanctions unless the party does something extraordinarily irritating that angers the court.

That's what I thought. Didn't Camp Coleman agree as to each and every ballot to be considered?

And didn't they agree to agree?

And now they want to go back?

I don't think so. They've stipulated and they can't UNstipulate just because the results undercut them.

I thought there were no two bites at the apple allowed.

Additionally, there is no way to be 100% certain that a voter actually intended to vote for Franken. They may have been confused or drunk. So to balance that out each ballot for Franken should be counted as a 1/2 vote for Al and a 1/2 vote for Norm. It's the only fair way to do it. Equal protection. Disenfranchised voters. Franken eats babies.

I think it a big mistake to take, as a model, what will or might happen from our memory of Bush v. Gore. There is a huge difference here.

First of all, Minnesota Law instructs the Court to send the full record of any election recount or contest to the Legislative Body for which the election was held -- in this case, to the US Senate, and in a recent ruling on Franken's petition for being given a temporary election certificate -- the MN Supreme Court denied his petition, and said specifically that they were the last step in Minnesota Law, and then the full record plus an election certificate would be sent to the Senate. Quite unlike the situation in Bush v. Gore -- the Constitution does instruct us as to the next step -- the Senate is the final judge of members qualifications and elections.

This is a huge difference between Bush v. Gore and the current Coleman v. Franken case. In fact should the US Supreme Court grant cert in this case before the Senate processes the submissions from the Minnesota Supreme Court, the Senate would properly call that a serious breach of constitutional powers given to the legislative branch in the constitution. I hardly think this court -- even though it has highly partisian members -- would ignore the clear constitutional language.

The problem confronted when Bush v. Gore went to the Court is very different. The Constitution does tell us what to do if the Electorial College is tied -- it does not tell us what to do if one critical state's vote counting system is flawed, and any remedy would run beyond the time allowed for selecting the next President. On that the Constitution is silent. It was really the matter of time that was critical in the Supreme Court stepping in in 2000, and that factor is not present in the Coleman v. Franken case. Clearly Minnesota has taken as much time as necessary to do the remedy prescribed in Minnesota Law for conducting a recount and then a contest as provided for by Minnesota Law.

As to Equal Protection -- you know the Election Contest Court addressed this in their opinion, and it will be against their legal reasoning that Coleman will be making his argument in the Supreme Court. They gave it about ten pages, plus lots of footnotes, and pretty much destroyed Coleman's argument. I frankly think the Supreme Court (MN) will pick up on the ECC's work, perhaps add some additional case law, and do some other editing of the language, and affirm the basic point. That is, namely, if in one county an error is made, and a Felon is permitted to vote, the remedy for that error is not to go out and collect the Felons and have them all vote. If an error is systemic, and clearly favors one candidate -- then an equal protection claim can be made. But if it is simply that, an error, something that is essentially random, with no proven intent to benefit one candidate over another, there is no reachable remedy other than to call the legislature's attention to the matter, and ask them to consider corrections for the future. (The Irony of course is that in recent years the legislature has taken notice of the witness matter -- the DFL proposed a remedy, and it was (not sure which) either vetoed by Pawlenty or defeated by Republicans.) At any rate the ECC did an excellent job detailing the state of the law with respect to Equal Protection as an issue -- and I expect the Supreme Court to pick up on that, and improve and affirm their work. And since most Election Law is State Law, as regards Equal Protection, Coleman v. Franken could well be the leading case in the US. It will be very ironic if Franken gets the Senate Seat, and all Coleman gets as booby prize is his name on references in footnotes in legal briefs in election law cases.

I believe you may be missing the macro point here: yes, that decision was a thorough one and yes, the MN Supreme Court is likely to rule similarly (after we eat up some more months without a second senator).

But you're ignoring the political component to all of this. See above, where someone wisely pointed out that once it hits Federal court territory, you may well find yourself in the hands of Movement Conservatives, appointed en masse by Bush (while the media was giving us all the latest poop about "American Idol", I might add).

How will Movement Conservatives interpret the law? How about, the way Scalia and Rehnquist interpreted "Equal Protection" to lock it in for Bush? How about... any way they want to? Logic and legality be damned?

The theft of the system in 2000 was such an early bite out of the "shock" theory, that the Rehnquist court felt the need to stop at the line of precedence, with that Disclaimer From Hell about not using Bush v. Gore to interpret any more cases henceforth (still, the most glaringly offensive ruling since Dred Scott, IMHO; not simply because it didn't go my way, but because it showed smirking contempt for the legal system, and the Constitution).

You have to believe that with all the Bushies got away with, during the following eight years, the sheer chutzpah of the right grew to such proportions that today, they're going back in with Coleman, to wipe up the little matter of codifying Equal Protection as a bludgeon against Republicans losing elections. Something they feel SCOTUS didn't have the balls to carry out, in Bush v. Gore.

I'm sure the machers of Movement Conservatism consider Rehnquist/Scalia's reticence to set precedent to have been a moment of shameful weakness. Which they will now correct.