should Al Franken receive back pay?

[Badger]

I never said Coleman was the winner. I would just like all of the ballots to be counted accurately.

Good news! They were!

[Badger]

The real question to ask about the election in 60 is not who won but would you rather have had Nixon in charge during the Cuban missile crisis? In my opinion none of us would be here to argue over this if Nixon was, Nixon was a lot of things but calm and collective were not one of them. Unlike Kennedy who was able to backdown some of the more militant members of his cabinet Nixon would have let them have there wish. Nixon would most likely had similar militant segments in his cabinet as all presidents do. These generals, in Kennedy's cabinet, wanted a full scale invasion of Cuba which would had lead to WWIII.  Plus, we would not have had Adlai Stevenson IV as UN ambassador.  A truly unsung hero of those chaotic days.  Who stood down the Russians at the one of the most critical of points in our history.

In regards to the Florida debacles it is closed and done and needs only to be brought up as a lesson for all patriotic Americans.  The disenfranchisement of legitimate voters has no place in our republic. Katherine Harris is a deplorable person who got hers in that beat down she received against Bill Nelson.  My advice for what little it is worth is that anyone who fixate on the past is doomed to become obsessed with it. Ultimately, any obsession will destroy you it is better to learn from the past and make sure it does not happen again.

To the question originally posted, no he should not. Let alone the fact that he does not need the money.  However dubious the legal challenge put forth by Coleman's campaign the were within the letter of the law.  Hopefully Coleman pays electorally for the delay of the rightful winner by never being able to hold another public office in Minnesota. Still he was within his rights to put forth the legal challenge. 

Sorry if that too long but as my friends would all tell you i am a long winded person. It can be a good and bad thing.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ all around, especially the first paragraph.

Welcome to the Forum!

[Badger]

Selected, not elected.

Now, I disagree with your opinion on the Minnesota Senate election, but do you feel this way about Bush in 2000 as well?

I feel they should have recounted all of the ballots.

But didn't the news agencies do that anyway and showed Bush won?

Actually, no, that's not *quite* what they showed.

That's the headline they put on it though, because they felt the country ought to Move On.

EDIT: There were several such studies, and their results vary (another's findings are similar in gist, but with different numbers. In a third, the results are actually reversed - Gore wins only on the strictest standard here). However, these other two appear to be based on samples.)

    * Lenient standard. Gore by 332 votes.

"Lenient" here means any ballot with an obvious mark at just one presidential candidate.

    * Palm Beach standard. Gore by 242 votes.

Under these rules, a not wholly detached but obviously marked chad is counted if the same thing occurs several times on the same ballot.

    * Two-corner standard. Bush by 407 votes.

What the media called "hanging chads". Apparently these came heavily from some strong Bush counties.

    * Strict standard. Bush by 152 votes.

The official result minus counting mistakes, basically. Only chads that fall out counted.

So, basically, as tied as Minnesota.
Of course, taking into account the 10s of thousands of wrongly spoilt Duval and Palm Beach ballots moves Gore's margin of victory to well outside the margin of error.
Ignoring for now the thousands of Palm Beach ballots attributed to the wrong candidate altogether because there's no way of correcting that or knowing how many they were, exactly. And the effects of the fraudulent voter list purge because, again, its effects cannot be quantified with any degree of certainty. And the couple of dozen votes Bush probably lost due to the wrongful early call while polls were still open in the Panhandle.

Not to mention the hundreds, of individuals denied voting rights at the polls based on "felony conviction records" which turned out to be 100% erroneous (e.g. a totally different person with the same name as a convicted felon; felony arrest resulted in misdemeanor conviction making them legally eligible to vote under Florida law). The disenfranchised were mostly African-American and lower income voters. Many of these "records of felony convictions were provided by other states to the FL Sec. of State--Katherine Harris, who could forget--before the election. Most were provided by one state in particular--you guessed it: Texas.

There's a special place in hell for Karl Rove.....

[Badger]

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Not to mention the hundreds, of individuals denied voting rights at the polls based on "felony conviction records" which turned out to be 100% erroneous (e.g. a totally different person with the same name as a convicted felon; felony arrest resulted in misdemeanor conviction making them legally eligible to vote under Florida law). The disenfranchised were mostly African-American and lower income voters. Many of these "records of felony convictions were provided by other states to the FL Sec. of State--Katherine Harris, who could forget--before the election. Most were provided by one state in particular--you guessed it: Texas.

There's a special place in hell for Karl Rove.....

I listed that. See above.
It's impossible to say how many of these people tried to vote. It's even impossible to say how many were really removed from the voter rolls - the SoS' files were so large and so obviously (to an expert - not that one was at hand in all counties) error-ridden that many counties just refused point-blank to act on them.

Agreed, and much (though hardly all) of the evidence of numbers in anecdotal. Still, FL was so close it's tough to believe it didn't swing the narrow narrow narrow balance of victory.

[Badger]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Not to mention the hundreds, of individuals denied voting rights at the polls based on "felony conviction records" which turned out to be 100% erroneous (e.g. a totally different person with the same name as a convicted felon; felony arrest resulted in misdemeanor conviction making them legally eligible to vote under Florida law). The disenfranchised were mostly African-American and lower income voters. Many of these "records of felony convictions were provided by other states to the FL Sec. of State--Katherine Harris, who could forget--before the election. Most were provided by one state in particular--you guessed it: Texas.

There's a special place in hell for Karl Rove.....

I listed that. See above.
It's impossible to say how many of these people tried to vote. It's even impossible to say how many were really removed from the voter rolls - the SoS' files were so large and so obviously (to an expert - not that one was at hand in all counties) error-ridden that many counties just refused point-blank to act on them.

Agreed, and much (though hardly all) of the evidence of numbers in anecdotal. Still, FL was so close it's tough to believe it didn't swing the narrow narrow narrow balance of victory.

New Mexico was closer.

True, in raw vote totals rather than percentages.

Your point here being.......?