I read a lot of blogs and sites. A LOT. Not too surprisingly, most of them are conservative in nature. While I have been by the cesspools at DU, Daily Kos etc over the years, I always feel like I need a pound of Lava soap after visiting such places, so…

It seems a little weird that he is persueing it.

So, we’ve got some ballots that were not counted due to them being improperly submitted absentee ballots that Coleman wants counted, despite the fact that they do not comply with rules meant to protect against voter fraud…that have been reviewed and still found wanting a second time. Coleman’s lawsuit to get them counted will not pass, or if it does it will open the door to wide-spread voter fraud. You can call it disenfranchisement if you want to, but there has to be SOME process to ensure the security of the absentee ballots.

We’ve got some ballots that were not counted by the machines because the people didn’t fill in the little circles, but instead drew a line through them, or an “X” or whatever, but when they were hand-counted in the re-count it was clear who they intended to vote for (those votes were not counted in the original, because the number was within the margin of error. They were required to be counted in the manditory re-count. I don’t think that there is any argument about these. They seem to have benefitted Franken marginally more, probably due to the large number of first-time voters that went Democratic.

And there are the 133 votes that were lost since election night. It makes sense that the canvassing board would go with the machine total on election night, as the machines are heavily monitored, and their internal collection chamber is inacessable to people at the polling site. By comparison, the hand-count security conditions were somewhat less secure.

I hope that Franken might be marginally better than a carp out of water.

The re-count was mandatory under Minnesota law, due to the narrow margin of “victory” for Coleman.

The ballots that Coleman now wants counted have been identified as properly rejected twice by a transparent, bi-partisan committee.

His challenge is legal and proper, I agree with him taking it to court, as every legal means to a fair election should be explored by both sides.

But probably futile, as the ballots were already dtermined to be properly rejected on two seperate occasions.

If there is any hypocracy in this situation, it is from Coleman, who urged Franken to forego a legally mandated re-count in the interests of public civility…but now is combating the results of the re-count in court.

Not that I blame him…I’m sure Franken would do the same.

Enough said.