No legal basis for Senate do-over (Star-Trib)

[struggle4progress]

... "This remedy may not be available as it is not explicitly spelled out in statute, and the court has a duty to determine which candidate received the most votes," wrote Sarah Cherry of the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, where election law experts are watching daily developments in the Norm Coleman-Al Franken case.

Minnesota statutes are the roadmap that brought this election into the legal thicket in which it has landed. Those statutes allow for protracted legal examination of the election's matters of dispute, and prohibit the issuance of an election certificate until legal appeals are exhausted (though even that apparently straightforward statute is the subject of a court challenge now.) Only the U.S. Senate can call for a new election, and that is neither imminent nor likely.

The three-judge panel who completed the ballot count in the last agonizingly close statewide election in Minnesota, the 1962 governor's race, ruled on March 20, 1963. This year's contest appears to be following a similar timetable.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/40731702.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUHK:uUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU