Court to Coleman and Franken: ‘Streamline!’

WOW! This is going to be a real test of how good the lawyers are. I predict Franken’s team gets an “A” and Coleman’s team a “D-” IMHO a lot of these cases may have to be decided by what was set-out in the Secretary of State’s directives to the Election Officials. Otherwise, you have different rulings now than were used in rejecting the other 5,000. So if NO signature in the proper place meant it was rejected before, thenit will have to be rejected now. But a lot of these seem very unusual and probably limited to a couple of ballots – such as the notary who didn’t stamp the envelope. How dumb was that? And probably has no directive from the SOS.
The court was very restrictive on ballots they accepted from the 61 Franken challengers. I think they will be inclined to be pretty strict here.

Thanks for the comment, Alyce. I think you are right about some of the categories only applying to a few ballots. The list above is very slightly modified from the original language of the court order — mostly verbatim but be sure to follow the link to the document to read the real thing to confirm fine points. As for the notary who doesn’t stamp the envelope, I agree you’d think that would be second nature for most notaries. However, in the case of one out-of-state Ramsey County absentee voter I interviewed, her notary public noticed there was no line for her signature or box for her stamp. Some might take that as a signal not to stamp.

What’s weird is Republicans get so paranoid about voter fraud, yet here some of these categories are clearly matters of voters failing to follow procedures. Now these ballots should be counted, according to the same people who wanted to throw out ballots where the choice was clear but the circle wasn’t fully filled in. What I have never understood about judges decisions through the whole process was they seem to have trouble with a simple concept. Voters shouldn’t be disenfranchised because election workers make a mistake. If the voter makes a mistake, it shouldn’t count. Why is this so hard? Oh right, Coleman’s Hail Mary pass for enough votes.

Some procedures might be obsolete measures to prevent fraud that are just a hindrance now, and that’s good reason to change procedures, but if the court just decides against following the law, all they’ll accomplish is creating the grounds for an appeal to the supreme court and maybe the federal courts. If election workers sent the wrong ballot, count it. If it arrived late, don’t count it. If the voter didn’t sign it, don’t count it. If the line for the signature was covered by the election worker, count it. It seems pretty straightforward. In Chris’s example of the notary not stamping it, the notary is effectively an election worker for this purpose, and that mistake should not disqualify the ballot, but since in theory anyone could claim to be a notary, it should be verified if possible.

At least after this, every time Dick Day or some other jerk expresses zero sympathy for people who have trouble physically filling out a ballot and no problem disenfranchising those voters (http://www.ravensblog.net/archives/january1-09.php#ritchie-day), let’s throw this in their faces.

[...] Recount – maybe some movement? The court told the Coleman and Franken lawyers to “streamline proceedings,” reports Chris Steller in MnIndy. [...]

FYI : The parties have submitted their responses and only agree on four questions.
#3 (no notary seal);
#10 (no signature on registration form included with ballot)
#15 (ballot delivered late by agent)
#18 (no registration, not caused by official error)
The agreement is to reject the ballots.

Interestingly, they agree that the Notary Seal is required.
According to Coleman’s team, “Although, neither that statute nor the language of 203B12, subd.2, requires that a witness who is a notary or who is authorized to administer oaths actually notarize the voter’s signature, it is reasonable to expect such a person to provide the standard evidence that he or she is in fact a notary. The absence of such is sufficient to rebut the presumption of trustworthiness afforded to the voter. The ballot should not be counted.”

Obviously, Coleman should have known that he is rejecting at least one of his voters. It begs the question, if he has reviewed all the ballots that fit this category and determined that Franken may have garnered more votes than he would.
Secondly, Coleman misses the argument that the voter is being impacted beyond his control. For example, in some states a notary seal is not required to be applied if you are an attorney, therefore it may be a practice that the seal would not be used, hence the voter did nothing wrong but because the out-of-state attorney did not know how Coleman’s team would deny the ballot, the voter lost.