Supreme Court Rejects Coleman Appeal

The Minnesota Supreme Court issued an order today denying the Coleman campaign’s request that the state’s Canvassing Board be blocked from considering “improperly rejected absentee ballots,” but, perhaps more important, the Court also directed the two campaigns, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (“the Man from ACORN”) and the state’s canvassing boards to agree on uniform standards to be applied by the counties. One justice, Alan Page, dissented on the ground that the counties should be able to make their own judgments about what ballots were properly cast and that there is no basis for requiring the candidates to agree on voting standards. I tend to agree with that point, actually.

The Star Tribune, and most other news sources, define the issue as relating to “improperly rejected absentee ballots.” If you frame the issue that way, the solution is obvious: correct the counties’ “errors.” But, as we noted here, the counties’ “fifth piles” contain many ballots that may well have been properly rejected under Minnesota law. Unless there is a uniform standard that is conscientiously applied, the advantage will go to the most partisan counties that control the most votes–not coincidentally, the most strongly Democratic counties.

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