Retiring Minnesota GOP Chairman Grouses About Franken
John Gizzi talked to departing Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Ron Carey, who breaks from Norm Coleman’s position on the Senate result and argues that the count was unfair.
“„The bottom line here is that ballots were inarguably treated differently, and the Supreme Court, in reviewing the case, never dealt with that fact. In Franken-friendly counties such as Hennepin, far more liberal standards were applied to absentee ballots than in counties not so Franken-friendly.
Every county used the same standard, of course, putting ballots into five piles, ranked by their readability. The argument is that some officials in some counties marked ballots in, say, pile 2, that other officials would have marked in pile 3. No court considered this an equal protection argument.
Also:
“„Between the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the television network affiliates, there was a public relations push that Franken had somehow won the race legitimately and Norm Coleman was a sore loser. It gathered the force of a freight train.
A really, really slow-moving freight train.
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