Minnesota Supreme Court Weighs Absentee Ballots
http://www.truthout.org/121808S
At a sometimes testy hearing, the state Supreme Court heard the
Coleman campaign's request to keep improperly rejected ballots out of
the U.S. Senate recount.
Minnesota's disputed U.S. Senate race went before the state
Supreme Court on Wednesday, as Sen. Norm Coleman's campaign sought to
keep improperly rejected absentee ballots from becoming part of the
official recount.
After a 70-minute hearing, both Republican Coleman and Democratic
challenger Al Franken awaited a ruling by the state high court that
could uncomplicate one of the largest remaining issues in the race -
whether as many as 1,600 absentee ballots that may have been
improperly rejected should be part of the recount now being completed
by the five-member state Canvassing Board. With the candidates
separated by such a narrow margin, the absentee ballots could be a
deciding factor.
At Wednesday's hearing, lawyers for both campaigns were peppered
with questions from the court, which was presided over by Justice
Alan
Page. Both Chief Justice Eric Magnuson and Justice G. Barry Anderson
recused themselves from the proceedings because they were again busy
Wednesday sorting through challenged ballots - another critical issue
in the recount - as members of the Canvassing Board.
The hearing in a packed room began with Justice Paul Anderson
testily responding to Roger Magnuson, the lead attorney for Coleman,
who compared Minnesota's recount to the 2000 presidential election
dispute that focused on the counting of ballots in Florida. "This is
not Florida," said Anderson.
Coleman's campaign does not want the Canvassing Board to count
any
improperly rejected absentee ballots, saying it is not the proper
body
to settle that issue. Instead, it wants those ballots set aside and
preserved in the event either campaign goes to court after the
recount
to try to get a judge to include them in the tally. The Franken
campaign wants the recount before the Canvassing Board to include the
ballots.
Magnuson argued that the Canvassing Board, which cannot legally
order county and city election officials to count the ballots,
confused matters last week when it recommended that local officials
sort and count them. With some counties following the recommendation,
and others not, the counts "will be inconsistent," said Magnuson, who
served as legal counsel for the Florida Senate and Legislature in the
2000 case arising out of the presidential election.
Bill Pentelovitch, the lead attorney for Franken before the
court,
was at times also confronted by the five justices. Page said he did
not understand why the disputed absentee ballots could not be counted
afterward should a court challenge be mounted. "What's the
difference?" he asked.
Pentelovitch replied that once the Canvassing Board finishes the
recount and issues a certificate of election to the winner in the
race, "the presumption [is] the person who has the certificate is the
winner."
Justice Paul Anderson, who appeared to reserve his most pointed
questions for the Coleman campaign, said he worried about the rights
of an absentee voter who cast a ballot that was improperly rejected.
"Why should a voter who does cast a ballot that's valid have to bring
a [legal] contest [to get it counted]?" he asked. "That just doesn't
seem right."
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