Short diary.
MN Supreme Court Ruling
If I understand it, the MN SC has ruled that the counties should stop counting absentee ballots until the campaigns "agree" on the procedure for determining an improperly rejected ballot.
The Dissent says the problem is that requiring the campaigns to agree asks for all sorts of shenanigans from a campaign that is not interested in seeing the votes counted. (Ahem.)
UPDATED:
Here's the money quote from the pdf. I typed this in by hand, so any typos are mine, not theirs:
- Because previously rejected absentee ballots that all agree were rejected improperly should be counted, and in light of the fact that the State Canvassing Board has not yet certified the final results of the recount, we order candidates Norm Coleman and Al Franken and their campaign representatives, the Secretary of State, and all county auditors and canvassing boards to establish and implement a process, as expeditiously as practicable, for the purpose of identifying all absentee ballots that the local election officials and the candidates agree were rejected in error.
This seems just ridiculous to me, and I urge everyone to read the well-written dissent.
From the comments (thanks Seneca Doane)
If you call it a mandatory settlement conference then it doesn't bother me. Both parties have to negotiate in good faith while facing the possibility of sanctions. That actually puts Coleman on the hot seat. If his argument is obviously capricious, he gets sanctions and the ballots count anyway. So, if he instead then agrees with Franken, then the case goes away without judicial fiat.
I want to believe this, and it might work out this way, but I still agree with the opinion in the DISSENT that the SC did not go far enough in their decision.