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Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer and Attorney General Mike Hatch are in charge of laying out the guidelines for ballot changes, in the wake of Sen. Paul Wellstone's death.
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Posted on 10/29/2002 12:35:00 PM PST by Timesink
October 29, 2002
The state DFL Party Tuesday filed a petition with the Minnesota Supreme Court asking it to intervene in the balloting confusion caused by Sen. Paul Wellstone's death last week.
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The petition asks the court to order the secretary of state to stop sending out absentee ballots until a replacement for Wellstone is named. The petition also argues that absentee ballots already returned and marked for Wellstone should be considered spoiled, thus allowing voters to request replacement ballots by mail. DFL attorney Alan Weinblatt says anything less will disenfranchise thousands of voters.
"Folks like that are being told you're out of luck," Weinblatt says. "It's just contrary to Minnesota law. And in addition to that, it's contrary to what Paul would have stood for, and it's contrary to what the citizens of Minnesota stand for."
Attorney General Mike Hatch, a Democrat, and Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer, a Republican, both say that county auditors must continue to distribute absentee ballots, even though they still bear the name of Sen. Wellstone. But votes for Wellstone won't count for his ballot successor, which the party will nominate on Wednesday.
Absentee votes already cast for Republican Norm Coleman will count toward his total.
It wasn't immediately clear how fast the court could deal with the lawsuit. Court officials received it just before noon and were deciding how to proceed, a spokesman said.
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"Folks ... are being told you're out of luck. It's just contrary to Minnesota law. And in addition to that, it's contrary to what Paul would have stood for."
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In 2000, legal wrangling over vote counting in Florida, including the handling of absentee ballots, kept the outcome of the presidential race up in the air until mid-December.
Almost 4½ percent of those voting cast absentee ballots in 1998, the last non-presidential election year.
Kiffmeyer and local election officials around Minnesota are still discussing how to count ballots next Tuesday.
The DFL lawsuit takes issue with vote-counting procedures already announced, including Kiffmeyer's plan to have all Senate votes counted by hand. A hand-count could delay results of the race until late Tuesday or early Wednesday.
The lawsuit argues that a supplemental ballot for all voters could be prepared for machine counts. It also argues that Kiffmeyer's office has issued misleading information to absentee voters about what their options are.
Weinblatt says he hopes the court will rule within the next day.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report)
The International Burial Society? Boy, those must be fun conventions.
Hatch and Kiffmeyer said that the law requires absentee ballots to be mailed "promptly" to applicants and that any delays could disenfranchise voters from making choices in all the offices to be filled in the election next Tuesday.- Hatch, Kiffmeyer resolve ballot issues [Minnesota Senate Race]"It would be highly arrogant for a county auditor or us to say, 'Put it off,' " Hatch said. He also said that the DFL could have mitigated the problem by nominating its replacement sooner. "It wasn't the secretary of state who chose Wednesday night," he said.
The understatement of the year.
Watch AG Hatch (RAT) cave to the national RAT party and turn on Kiffmeyer. She will soon get the full double barreled "Katherine Harris" character assasination treatment.
Yes, death is a bitch.
Does anyone know the Minnesota courts? Are they a bunch of kangaroos like Florida or, worse, blatantly corrupt like New Jersey?
They can try, but it will backfire bigtime. Mary Kiffmeyer is one of the most respected people in MN politics. Her looks won't hurt her either. (Not trying to be sexist, just realistic in our media saturated culture.)
LOL, is ten years enough?
I wonder why Hatch would back up saying tough sh_t to the absentees already voting for Wellstone. Maybe he is suckering Kiffmeyer to take a big fall. Dunno, but this should be interesting.
Glad to hear it. Thanks for the local knowledge.
IMHO, the RATS stepped on their gebhardts when they went after K. Harris, and like you say, it will backfire here as well.
I disagree with you, but further on your point, how will they prove which ballot is theirs? And when I say prove, I mean PROVE. Not "i am a registered dem and i certainly voted for Wellstone."
Yeah, everyone's dying to go to them. Actually, all they do is sit around and watch reruns of "Six Feet Under." It makes a Star Trek convention look like Mardi Gras in Rio.
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