I’m all for ragging on Norm Coleman, and I’m grateful that TPM has been doing such a good job of it. And it certainly looks to me from the Strib website that Coleman really did file a bunch of competely meritless ballot challenges (and the Franken folks filed more than a few). But I can’t see what’s wrong with the Coleman folks deciding, once they’d seen what sort of challenges the board was accepting, to re-file a few that they’d previously pulled. I wouldn’t expect any candidate to forgo a legitimate advantage, or to fail to argue any reasonable case.
The good news is that the Franken folks did the same and wound up a few votes ahead, net. And that Franken looks to be winning, even not counting the improperly rejected absentee ballots.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman