It is now, technically, a year later and the Coleman-Franken race is still on, albeit perhaps finally sputtering to an end—the ballots counting phase, that is.
According to TPM Election Central:
Al Franken could be declared the winner of the Minnesota recount as soon as Monday, but due to the peculiarities of Minnesota election law, Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) could keep the seat bottled up in the courts for weeks or even months before a decisive resolution to the race, making it harder for the Democratic majority in the Senate to seat Franken on even a provisional basis.
Apparently every indication is that the Coleman campaign will do exactly that by filing all kinds of legal challenges in both state and federal courts, with the possibility that it could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Because of such challenges and legal actions, it is conceivable that Minnesota may only have one Senator for a long time. Preparing for such a possibility:
Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s office has explored the option of appointing an interim Senator to ensure that the state has full representation, but their current position is that he wouldn’t be legally able to do it. Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar has floated the idea of the Senate provisionally seating the winner next week, pending the completion of the litigation. But Sen. John Cornyn, the head of the Senate GOP’s campaign committee, has signaled that Republicans will block any such effort, and the fact is they have enough seats to filibuster it.
Meanwhile, over at the Wall Street Journal they are lamenting what they call “another dubious recount” that has put Franken in the lead, and recalling past alleged “recount wars” and “systemic flaws in our election processes” in “The Minnesota Recount Folly: We’ve Been Down That Road…How the Democrats ‘won’ the Washington governor’s mansion in 2004.”
According to the Journal, “Something is wrong when a victorious candidate owes more thanks to vote counters than to voters. Such was the case in Washington in 2004, and Minnesota is poised to follow in its footsteps in 2008.”
The Journal goes on to describe in detail “highly dubious” recounts, felons illegally voting, provisional ballots wrongly counted, votes cast from beyond the grave ,”enhanced” and “mystery” ballots, in the 2004 Washington Gubernatorial election, and makes suggestions for improving the “entire election process, including recounts.”
Yet nary a mention of the biggest and most infamous “dubious” election and selection in recent times—the 2000 presidential elections charade in Florida and the subsequent U.S. Supreme Court selection of George W. Bush.
Stay tuned.
