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| Franken: Coleman Trying to Disenfranchise Voters |
| 2008-12-16 |
| Democrat Al Franken's campaign on Monday accused Sen. Norm Coleman's (R) campaign of trying to halt the recount in the state's contested Senate race and disenfranchise Minnesota voters whose absentee ballots were improperly disqualified. "The Coleman campaign went to the state's highest court to stop the counting and overrule a unanimous decision by the canvassing board," Franken campaign attorney Marc Elias said in a conference call Monday. The state's Board of Canvassers recommended on Friday that counties to open and count more than 1,000 absentee ballots they said were disqualified for no stated, legal reason. The Coleman campaign filed a suit with the Minnesota Supreme Court asking the court to stop counties from tallying the ballots until the Court can establish a uniform standard for reviewing the uncounted ballots. "The Supreme Court ought to direct the local officials to step back, take a breath, and allow the Court to set a uniform standard," Coleman campaign attorney Fritz Knaak said Monday in a conference call. Franken's campaign accused Coleman's suit of really trying to overturn the board's decision last week, and prevent the votes from being counted. Elias said that a clear, uniform standard for counting the ballots already exists in the Minnesota election code. "Norm Coleman didn't get his way on Friday, so he's suing to stop the counting of lawful ballots and disenfranchise voters who did nothing wrong," Franken spokesman Andy Barr said. "That may be characteristic of his approach to this entire process, but it's entirely un-Minnesotan." "None of this is going to work, but it is worth noting about how they must feel about their standing in the process," Elias said. Coleman maintains a 194-vote lead over Franken in the official tally after a hand recount of the ballots, but that figure does not take into account the several thousand ballots challenged by both campaigns over the course of the recount. Each campaign has withdrawn a majority of its challenges, with Franken's campaign expecting to lodge fewer than 500, and Coleman pledging to submit "south of 1,000" to the state's Board of Canvassers for review this week. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Give them a chance, it's not over yet. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-12-16 08:15 |
| #2 Every time there's a close race, it gets into lawsuits. Funny how it's only one side that always screams "disenfranchisement" whenever this happens. If it wasn't in Minnesota, they'd be screaming racism, too. |
| Posted by: gromky 2008-12-16 05:09 |
| #1 Franken still trying for laughs, and failing. |
| Posted by: Muggsy Glink 2008-12-16 01:30 |