Al Franken would do the same thing. Had the recount left him 225 votes behind rather than with that slim lead, the DFLer and apparent victor in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race would challenge the outcome in court, as Republican Norm Coleman has done.
And Franken's -- or Coleman's -- motivation for doing so, even if it came from sour grapes or an unwillingness to accept defeat, wouldn't matter. Dragging out a recount that's already trudged along for more than two months would be -- and is -- a small price to pay to assure that the results are right, that the process, for all its flaws, worked and ultimately was fair.
"The eyes of the nation are on the state that we love," Coleman said at a news conference this week announcing his court challenge. "We need to show them that Minnesota has done everything we can to make sure that we protect every voter's right."
The race and its recount demand that Minnesota's election laws be made clearer and stronger. Whether a ballot can or should be rejected shouldn't be so open to debate or "lawyerly sniping," as a New York Times reporter described the process.
But in spite of the sometimes unflattering glare of the national media, Minnesota can be proud of the past several weeks. The recount was carried out by a bipartisan canvassing board, which Webcast its meetings and made every contested ballot available for public inspection via the Internet. The unprecedented political transparency stood in stark contrast to the embarrassing recount dramas that unfolded in Florida in the 2000 presidential race and in Washington state in the 2004 election for governor.
ADVERTISEMENT
"There's been a healthy public engagement," Edward B. Foley, a professor of law at Ohio State University who's researching a book on contested elections, said this week. "It's partly technology, but the primary force is a cultural one. There's a richness to the Minnesota public discourse."
Even if it sometimes takes awhile to get right. And even if it's going to take a bit longer.
