Norm Coleman: Maybe We Need A Do-Over Election

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The talk from the Coleman campaign about how the Minnesota election results are unreliable, and that a do-over election could be an option, has now gone beyond just Norm Coleman’s lawyers — it’s now coming from the mouth of Norm himself.

Coleman did an interview with Sirius conservative talk-radio host Andrew Wilkow, and discussed the campaign’s argument that the court’s current strict standards for allowing in previously-rejected ballots must by extension render illegal a whole lot of ballots accepted and counted on Election Night, when local election officials used lax standards:

“What does the court do?” Norm asked rhetorically. “Yeah, you know some folks are now talking about simply saying run it again, just run it again.”

“Have another statewide election?” Wilkow asked.

Coleman responded: “You know the St. Paul Pioneer Press is…one of the second largest papers in the state, last week [they] said we’re never going to figure this out, just run it again. So you start hearing that. Ultimately the court has to make a determination, can they confirm, can they certify who got the most legally cast votes?”

Coleman also said that he truly believes that he is the one who got the most legally cast votes, but on the other hand, this whole situation shows serious concerns about the process.

“I got to believe next time this happens folks are going to say … if you have something within a couple of say percentage – this is by the way was thousandths of a percent – but if you have something within a couple of hundred votes out of three million cast, probably the best thing to do next time is run it again in three weeks and put all this other stuff aside.”

(By the way, Norm only mentioned one particular Democratic county where lax standards were used. However, his own legal team has demonstrated during this trial that leniency occurred in deep-red counties, too. He also declared with confidence that he was ahead on Election Night — but his legal spokesman Ben Ginsberg declared yesterday evening that the Election Night totals themselves are tainted and unreliable.)

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