At a press conference just now, Coleman spokesman Ben Ginsberg said it very bluntly: He does not believe it’s possible for the election court to legally declare a winner.
The Coleman campaign has now been building up a case that there are too many intractable legal problems in this case, and they’ve gone so far as to openly suggest to the judges that the whole thing just be thrown out. Now Ginsberg is pumping up the volume a little more.
Ginsberg was repeatedly asked whether the Coleman camp wants a new election.
At one point, he said: “We’re calling for this court to do its duty and either certify — which I don’t think it can do — or not certify,” adding that once the court realizes they can’t certify the vote totals, we can then talk about a remedy.
One thing that now needs to be pointed out is a clever piece of word-play Ginsberg has used. At the presser today he said the court is now unable to certify “the number of legally-cast votes,” and he’s also used the phrase “the exact number of legal votes.”
But that’s not what the law says. It says, emphasis ours: “the only question to be decided by the court is which party to the contest received the highest number of votes legally cast at the election and is therefore entitled to receive the certificate of election.”
The law doesn’t say the exact number of legal votes. It just calls for a legal determination of which party received more of them.
However, Norm has us covered there — he doubts we can figure that out, either.
(Ginsberg presser c/o The Uptake.)
