In a column printed last Sunday, Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman lavished praise upon Crazy Tom Emmer, the Republican party's failed gubernatorial candidate, for stating in an interview that he would not contest the result of the recount now underway unless there was some reasonable prospect of prevailing on the merits and being declared the winner. Here is the meaty part of Emmer's statement, as reported by Coleman:
"I don't want to put myself or others through a futile process," he told the Pioneer Press. He isn't throwing in the towel, he hastened to add. But if the manual recount -- due to be finished, with a declared winner, by Dec. 14 -- doesn't turn up evidence of major irregularities, and if Dayton's margin remains beyond reach, Emmer said, he will not go to court to prolong the uncertainty.
"If ... we're on the short end, we're done," he said.
Coleman permits the adjective "statesmanlike" to creep into his description of this one reasonable speech act. Since Sunday, however, the actual recount has begun, and Emmer is looking like the sweet old pope who blathers about reconciliation while the local archdiocese seeks to intimidate victims of clergy abuse. Here is Coleman's paper reporting on the shifting Republican tactics during days one and two of the manual recount in Washington County, just east of St Paul:
On Monday, Republican observers asserted that ballots that had no marked vote for either gubernatorial candidate implied a vote for Emmer. On Tuesday, Emmer representatives abandoned that practice. . . .
For small blessings we should all be thankful! I had to read that paragraph twice and even then could not really credit it. Alas, it is roughly consistent with the tactics pursued by Emmer partisans in other recount venues. In Hennepin County, for example, where almost a quarter of the ballots were cast (and where I live and work), elections manager Rachel Smith pleaded with Emmer's people to cease and desist with the frivolous challenges so that the recount could proceed apace and be completed, ontime, by the first part of next week. For this she was criticized by GOP state party chair Tony Sutton, who said Rachel appeared "definitely hostile to our right to challenge." It's more like a right to be ridiculous. You can go here and view for yourself examples of ballots challenged by the GOP. If these are not votes for Mark Dayton, the Democrat, then no one voted in the election.
Despite Coleman's panegyric on Emmer's reasonableness, the nightmare scenario is still a depressing possibility. Team Emmer could continue to delay the recount, and then, when its results are finally certified, and Emmer remains behind Dayton by well over 8,000 votes, the inevitable outcome could be further delayed by a court challenge that would likely prevent governor-elect Dayton from assuming his responsibilities on January 3. Instead, the current governor, Tim Pawlenty, a Republican with presidential aspirations, could remain in office to make decisions that the people of Minnesota chose Dayton to make.
What argument would be made in a legal challenge to the election result? An article in today's Star Tribune sheds light on this question by quoting, not Tom Emmer (the good cop), but state GOP chair Tony Sutton (the bad cop):
Sutton said Republicans could explore two fronts in a possible court case after recounted vote totals are certified by the state Dec. 14. Republicans have claimed that local election officials never properly reconciled the number of votes with the number of voters and in some cases, failed to remove so-called excess votes. That case was already made to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which promptly rejected it.
Sutton maintains the matter is still "a potential issue in a contest."
The other issue is Minnesota's law allowing registered voters to vouch for unregistered voters on Election Day. Republicans have raised complaints about the voucher law before, but have never offered any evidence of wrongdoing.
So as of today the Republican case, as articulated by Chairman Sutton, rests on one argument that the state supreme court has already rejected and another one for which there is no evidence. It seems crazy, but these are the people who on Monday of this week were arguing that a vote for no one should count as a vote for Emmer. Both strategies--the frivolous ballot challenges and a frivolous election contest after the manual recount confirms that Dayton won--make sense only if the object is to delay.
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