Talk Elections

should Al Franken receive back pay?

Will he pay income tax on it?

He should certainly get retroactive seniority. No reason for him to have less seniority than Burris.

That and my answer's yes.  He should not suffer because Norm Coleman is a stupid weasel.

No.  Nor should have Coleman received back pay in the unlikely event he had prevailed in his effort.

I actually agree. He hasn't been "hired" yet, so to speak, and thus isn't owed back pay.

for stealing an election?

Precisely, isn't that worthy of your admiration?

Selected, not elected.

right

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

Of course not silly!

Bush was a good Republican.

Franken is an eeeeevil librul!!!

Oops, you're right, silly Franzl didn't think of that.

lol. Franken not only got more votes, his margin increased with each recount, and would almost certainly have increased if Coleman had won the court case.

I feel they should have recounted all of the ballots.

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

Only using very specific conditions. A full statewide recount would have changed the winner most likely.

And even then we're only talking about the ballots that were cast. They didn't really reflect the will of the electorate.

But alright...I don't want to argue about Florida in 2000.

What leads you to believe that the case in which the Republican won was legitimate, but where the liberal Democrat wins it's a "selection"?

They applied different standards in different counties for counting or throwing out ballots, there was no uniformity, so hence, there was some voter disenfranchisement.

Eight Minnesota judges in two different courts disagreed with that assesment.
None accepted it.

says the Coleman campaign

Can anyone please explain what makes Franken's victory illegitimate and why Coleman is clearly the real winner? (Please note that this question has absolutely nothing to do with the 2000 election so don't mention it in your reply.)

Because Franken is a librul comedian whose presence will darken a chamber that otherwise can boast for the presence of such distinguished statesmen like David Vitter, James Inhoffe, Tom Coburn, Jeff Sessions and Jim Bunning.

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

Good news! They were!

And unlike critical states in the 1876 and 2000 elections.

And in what way weren't they?


Please don't bring up that red herring and let them divert from the point.

Since when does this bother Republicans?

Norm Coleman didn't give a rats ass about voter disenfranchisement until the first recount changed the result and made Franken the winner.

Before that, he thought it would be honorable for Franken to concede a close race and avoid a drawn out legal battle.

So much for that.

Yes they did.  Even the leftist domanated media had to admit Bush won fair and square.  Franken however stole this election it is something the democRAT party specialises in.  Nixon won in 1960 but guess what?  old joe kennedy and the mafia got thier boy in chicago to deliver Illinois for the golden boy.  and we got almost a decade of extreme socialism here.  At least johnson had the balls to stand up to the communist slopes.  Kennedy was such a pussy -- just like carter or obama.  He let the reds slaughter freedom fighters on the beaches of Cuba.

Any way the point is...democRATs rarely win elections fairly.  some times they get a stealth third party guy like Perot to run and draw off votes from the Republican candidate.  Or they just pull a stunt like the last election and guilt the public into voting for a leftist.  "Oh no if you vote for Mccain you MUST be a racist and a bigot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

In 2000 Nader took votes from Gore. In 2006 Rick Santorum(R) tried to prop up Carl Romenali's independent bid cause he could of siphoned lefties from Casey(D). Both parties do this.

In 1960 even if ILL was "stolen" Nixon still would have lost the electoral college without either Missouri or New Jersey. People often bring up Texas but the margin was far too large.

Franken should not get pay for 2009. After wasting so much money on this race neither Norm or Franken deserved to get paid for 2009.

Al Franken wasn't the one doing the long, drawn-out court challenges.

See, this is why the far-right is considered a little out of touch.

Back on topic, he should not get back-pay, but he should get seniority if the issue arises.

Number of Electoral Votes needed to win in 1960: 269
Number of Electoral Votes JFK won in 1960: 303
Number of Electoral Votes in Illinois in 1960: 27

303 - 27 = 276

276 > 269

Many of us also argue that there was some funny business going on in LBJ's Texas also.  ;)

The rabid, talking point hacks only mention Illinois though.

It's Texas. Funny business is kind of a state tradition.

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!

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.....

top prospect

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.

That assumes that with Nixon in charge there would have been a Cuban missile crisis.  Nixon would likely have either never let the Bay of Pigs invasion happen, or if it did let it go forward, he would have gone ahead and given the invaders the overt support they needed.

In the former case, Castro might not have been so worried about a Yankee-backed counter-revolution as to allow Soviet missiles be placed in Cuba, and in the latter case, there most certainly would not have been Soviet missiles in Cuba.

Thanks badger and @bleak. 

Ernest as i am sure you know the smallest of changes in the historical timeline would drastically alter present reality.  So, I am sure you are right had Nixon been elected a lot of different events would have taken place so, who knows whether we would have had the missile crisis. Still, we were far better off with Kennedy's victory over Nixon.  Both of whom proved this point during their times in office.

Proof or just more useless hyperbole?

Want to see some real voter intimidation? Check this out : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4MTQVMatW0

Of course the racist Eric Holder dropped the investigation.

States,

First, did i say anywhere in that statement that democrats are free from the charge of disenfranchisement or voter intimidation.  The Florida case how ever is the most egregious as it changed the course of human events.  Most of the time when this happens there are repercussions in this case it was the deaths of thousands, the destruction of our economy, and the loss individual freedoms. All of which we can never get back, lives cant be replaced and freedoms once lost rarely ever return.  Also in my lifetime the cases of voter intimidation and disenfranchisement are seen more on the right than the left.  This does not excuse any of it for everyone of age should have the right to vote period!!!! Minnesota gets mad respect from me for their walk up registration. A valid id or proof of residency is all that should be required.  This is easy to verify with computers and can easily be done on the spot.

As to you question it takes five seconds to find evidence of it, thus look below for links(I'm sure you wont read them but thats ok.) Also the pastor who was profiled in the movie recount spoke at my school a few years back.  Sadly his name alludes me and my search came up empty.  His story was factual and i believe him a lot more than some random dude on the internet.  The pastor name was the same as a out of state felon thus when the witch from the south purged the voter rolls he was purged as well.  If that isn't disenfranchisement i don't know what is maybe you can explain the word to me for if it is not my poly sci profs must have failed me.

I don't know you or your track record but i have a feeling you will attack my statements, from what little i can detect you seem reactionary so have fun.  I don't really care if you do just try to come up with something more than your guys do it to so its okay we do.  That response is not kosher and is hyperbole in its real definition.

These are just three i have found in a few second of looking that seem to be spot on i am sure if i cared enough i could find hundreds more but either way tag you are it.

Links
www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch9.htm
sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Felon_disenfranchisement
www.thenation.com/doc/20010205/palast

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.......?