Norm Coleman's campaign: Lawsuit's purpose is "to make sure that there is genuine ballot integrity"

[marmar]

:eyes:


from the Politico:



November 09, 2008
Categories: Minnesota

Coleman camp starts, loses first round

Clinging to a 221-vote lead, Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman is the first candidate this year to make it to post-election court. And while every candidate in a close race promises to count every vote, Coleman's campaign filed an injunction yesterday seeking to stop Minneapolis elections administrators from including 32 new ballots.

But it is Democrats who claimed the first legal victory, as Coleman's motion was denied, the St. Paul Pioneer-Press reports this morning.

The lawsuit came after Minneapolis elections officials informed the Coleman campaign that the absentee ballots, which had been been overlooked on Election Day, would be included in their final tally. State law requires ballots to arrive at elections offices by Election Day, and Coleman's campaign questioned the integrity of the ballot.

"Under the circumstances the possibility of 32 unsecured ballots being counted in this tight election race and being told about them at 8:00 on a Friday night, the evening before they were to be counted, raised serious concerns on the part of the Coleman campaign," Coleman attorney Fritz Knaak said at a press conference yesterday.

"My purpose in all this is to make sure that there is genuine ballot integrity; it is not to see that anyone doesn't vote, quite the opposite," Knaak said. "But we want to make sure that people that are voting are in fact Minnesotans, are in fact registered voters and that they are in fact being done according to the rules."

A spokesman for Democrat Al Franken's campaign accused Coleman's team of trying to suppress votes, calling the legal maneuver a "stealth attack" in a statement provided to the Pioneer-Press.


http://www.politico.com/blogs/scorecard/1108/Coleman_Camp_Starts_Loses_First_Round.html

[brentspeak]

1. I thought Norm wanted the "healing process" to begin

[bluesmail]

2. OK you lost. n/t

[mn9driver]

3. Norm's lawsuit is intended to delegitimize the process.

His hope is that if enough legal challenges are brought against every single ballot, he can make it impossible to do a full recount.