Al Franken won the election recount in January against Norm Coleman.
Then last Tuesday, the 3-judge panel ruled in Al's favor--after millions were spent on legal fees and 7 weeks were spent reviewing ballots by hand.
Not surprisingly, after Coleman hypocritcally asked Al to "save taxpayer's money" and not go forward with the automatic recount back in November, Coleman is showing no signs of ever quitting his appeals.
He is now promising to take his case to the Minnesota Supreme Court. And he is not ruling out an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court or filing a new lawsuit in federal district court. Never mind that he has no chance of winning, for even Coleman said "it's not looking good". As Nate Silver points out:
Of about 150 absentee ballots that, having already been rejected twice by the counties (once on Election Night and then again pursuant to a court order), were triple-checked by the counties for potentially being wrongly rejected, only 1 was determined by county officials to be a valid ballot. At that rate of success, Coleman's 4,800 ballots would turn into a grand total of ... 32 that are actually deemed to have been rejected improperly.
Al won the election in November, He won the recount in January, and he's won the legal ruling. If this continues, he will win every single appeal.
It's over.
End it already. This recount has gone far beyond what is remotely reasonable.
With all of the major legislative items involving the economy, such as the stimulus package and universal health care, Minnesota is flying solo in the Senate. Every other state now has two Senators fighting for their people. But sore loser Coleman ooesn't care about screwing over Minnesotans any more than he cares about the will of the people he was once elected to serve.
It's all about him.
It is obvious the plan is stall. GOP officials have openly made statements about how great it is that the appeals are dragging out the process. John Cornyn even predicted that the appeals could take "years". (He's hoping six).
I say it's time the Democrats start acting like a majority party.
The U.S. Constitution allows each congressional chamber to be the "Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members." Harry Reid--the people of Minnesota have spoken. Don't allow these shenanigans to continue.
Seat Al Franken!!
