Franken wins MN senate seat?

[werldhed]

Probably?

I stopped paying attention a few weeks ago, but it looks like a win for Al Franken at this point. The Supreme Court can still make a ruling on the remaining absentee ballots in question, though.

Regardless, I'm sure Coleman will try to push on with some legal action. It seems appropriate since back in November he said Franken shouldn't pursue a recount and that he'd honorably bow out if he was in Franken's position...

Bah, I just want it over with, so I know which congressman to write in the future.

LINK

Senate race certification set for Monday with Franken up 225 votes
The Supreme Court has yet to rule on Coleman's request to consider more wrongly rejected ballots.

By KEVIN DUCHSCHERE and MIKE KASZUBA, Star Tribune

DFLer Al Franken won an impressive share Saturday of what may be the last ballots tallied in the U.S. Senate recount, boosting his unofficial lead over Sen. Norm Coleman to 225 votes heading into a Monday meeting where the state Canvassing Board will certify the final result of the race.

At least two things, however, still stand in the way of Franken becoming Minnesota's newest U.S. senator: the possibility of a ruling by the Minnesota Supreme Court that more wrongly rejected absentee ballots should be counted, and a legal contest that Coleman attorneys all but promised should Franken prevail.

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

wtg Al. He'll be better than 90% of those other schmucks.

[werldhed]

update:
Court rejects Coleman bid to consider rejected absentee ballots

The Minnesota Supreme Court today rejected a bid by Republican Norm Coleman to have hundreds of rejected absentee ballots considered in the U.S. Senate recount, apparently clearing the way for a state board to certify election results showing Democrat Al Franken on top — and also opening the door to a post-recount lawsuit that the Coleman campaign said "is now inevitable."

So now it's just up to Coleman to drag this thing out. Fantastic.

[scared?]

lol and on election nite when coleman was winning...he said if he was franken he would just concede...

[R00k]

The Republicans are going to filibuster against allowing Franken to be seated in the Senate.

http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/cornyn ... html?ddoun

Man - and they came so close to completely demonizing that evil (constitutional) filibuster process when the Democrats thought about using it. Now they're using it to try to keep Minnesota voters from having the Senator they wanted in government -- having any Senator at all -- until Coleman is finished with all the sour-grapes court battles that he criticized Franken for even thinking about. Is there a bigger group of hypocrites in the country than Republicans?

[werldhed]

*BUUUUUUUMP*

MN Supreme courts rules for Franken

Finally, for the love of god. If Coleman challenges this in federal court, it'll be years before republicans get elected again.


EDIT: I should note that the court didn't actually order the Governor to issue the certificate for Franken. Gov. Pawlenty said he would seat Franken if he was ordered to do so, but I guess there's a chance that he won't. Especially if he wants to make a bid for presidency, he might try to play it safe with the republican base.

[R00k]

I wonder what record is for the longest time frame that a constituency has gone without a senator.

[Fender]

"The Supreme Court has made its decision and I will abide by the results," Coleman told reporters outside his St. Paul home.

[seremtan]

lol, american democracy

how long ago was the election now?

[menkent]

8 months, plus or minus.

[seremtan]

was it some kind of mid-term midtacular? i thought the last congressional elections were in 2006?

[werldhed]

Nope. The last elections were in 2008, alongside the presidential election (there are elections for various states every two years). Franken was down by ~700 votes at that time, and that was close enough for the state's automatic recount policy to kick in. At the end of that, Franken was up by 312 votes.
The reason it was drawn out for so long is because both sides complained about some absentee ballots that were incorrectly omitted from the count. In the end, the court upheld that those ballots were correctly omitted, and the recount results were valid.

[seremtan]

i used to download and listen to al franken's air america show but got bored with it

he had jimmy hoffa on once (no, not the dead one)

[RiffRaff]

Yea!, another turd gets flushed into the sewer called the Senate.

[seremtan]

what has geoff's dad got to do with al franken?

[werldhed]

I still think it's amazing that Coleman couldn't win with stuff like that out there.

(Coleman also lost the gubernatorial race against Jesse Ventura. So now he's lost to a pro wrestler and an SNL comedian )