Al Franken Wins Recount

Minnesota finally completed the recount and Al Franken officially beat Norm Coleman by 312 votes out of nearly 3 million. So what's next? Norm Coleman will appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which will uphold the meticulous work of the 3-judge panel. Then Coleman will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing the outrageous decision in Bush v. Gore as precedent, even though the Supreme Court declared Bush v. Gore should never be used as a precedent.

As Ernest A. Canning reports for BradBlog:

Referencing Florida 2000's controversial U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore, Ginsberg contended Coleman was denied equal protection.

As both the Franken legal team, and the three-judge panel, observed, Ginsberg's equal protection argument is fatally flawed. For starters, there is a serious issue of waiver. Coleman did not challenge the lawfulness of the previously counted absentee ballots either during the post-election hand-count or in his notice of contest.

The three-judge panel observed [PDF] that Bush v Gore was based on questions arising under "Florida's basic command…to consider the 'intent of the voter.' The United States Supreme Court found that while this principle was 'unobjectionable as an abstract proposition…the problem inheres in the absence of specific standards to insure its equal application.'" Minnesota's objective standards for opening and counting absentee are specific, clear and unmistakable.

Franken's legal team argued [PDF] that imperfect application of these clearly delineated standards by local election officials does not "constitute a constitutional violation. Not only would this result in an untenable rule that would make democratic and federalist government impossible; it finds no support in the case law. Rather, courts have consistently refused to find constitutional violations due to errors or inconsistencies, where clear state standards exist."

Update 1: Ed Kilgore thinks the lesson progressives learned from the Stolen Election of 2000 was to copy Republican legal and p/r tactics. Wrong! We learned the need to work diligently within the legal system to make sure every vote is cast and counted. We know we could never get away with Republican fraud tactics because Republicans control the media, which lets them scream fraud at us ("ACORN") when they're the ones committing it!