Posted on 10/31/2002 2:40:19 PM PST by Yankee
Just announced on "The Big Show".
Minnesota court turned down the Rats.
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Published Nov. 1, 2002
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VOTE01
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Acting just hours after hearing arguments in the case, the court's seven justices didn't detail their reasoning. But the order requires election officials to fulfill requests for new ballots and count the most recent one they receive.
Democratic Party lawyer Alan Weinblatt had urged the court to either invalidate all Senate votes on absentee ballots, deliver new ballots to anyone who previously applied for one or make a new one available at a voter's request.
Even with the court's quick ruling, there's no guarantee voters will get a new ballot in time to return it before polls close on Tuesday. There are only five days left to Tuesday's election, in which former Vice President Walter Mondale has replaced Wellstone as the Democrats' candidate against Republican Norm Coleman.
Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer said after the hearing that county auditors would be ready to quickly process requests for new ballots. The order, handed down by the court as a whole, requires county auditors to include instructions that state clearly that the second ballot would replace the first one they mailed in. Voters who sent in their ballots and don't want to make a change can do nothing and their vote will count, the order states.
Republicans opposed a blanket re-mailing, but their lawyer told the court the party was willing to accept an order that new ballots be sent to anyone who requests them, which was the Democrats' second choice.
Weinblatt wanted justices to rule that existing absentee ballots should be considered ``spoiled'' if voters who cast them want to change their vote.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of DFL Party Chairman Mike Erlandson and two voters who will be out of the state on Election Day. It alleges that a process outlined by Kiffmeyer, a Republican, and Attorney General Mike Hatch, a Democrat, could disenfranchise people who voted absentee for Wellstone.
Their guidelines had left people with unreturned absentee ballots to either write in Mondale's name or vote in person at their local election office on or before Election Day. People who had already submitted theirs were told to go their election office and request a new ballot.
Nam Vet
The Rats wanted to count all those sent in from cemetaries.
Yes, praise be that the law is still the law in my state
The wisdom of Solomon.
It will make it harder for the Dems to rig the election via truckloads of absentee ballots that won't come in until three weeks after the election
Yes, exactly!
Don't know how much difference this will make in the end, but it certainly isn't the news the Dems were hoping for. If only 70% of the Wellstone absentee voters decide to "re-vote", that's still 30% (maybe thousands of votes) that WON'T get revoted.
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