Abstract
Abstract
One of the most daunting circumstances that confronts a robust democracy is a major election where the initial returns show an extraordinarily narrow margin of victory. The intensely competitive political forces that produce the proverbially “razor-thin” result inevitably carry over into the canvassing and recounting of votes. The existence of errors in the casting and counting of ballots will give the competing candidates a set of specific grounds over which to battle. If disputed ballots are either removed or added to the official count, the result may be the declaration of a different winner. Therefore, the laws and institutions charged with resolving post-voting disputes over particular ballots when the stakes are this high will be challenged in meeting a key test of democratic legitimacy: will the electorate, including supporters of the candidate that eventually loses this protracted fight, believe that the ultimate resolution was unbiased towards either side?
Minnesota's election for U.S. Senate in 2008 is the nation's most recent major election in which an extraordinarily close initial margin of victory triggered a protracted fight over particular ballots. Coming in the wake of the disputed presidential election of 2000, as well as Washington's disputed gubernatorial election of 2004, the fight between incumbent Norm Coleman and challenger Al Franken over Minnesota's U.S. Senate seat merits close attention for the lessons it can teach on how better to prepare for similar disputes that will arise in the future. This article describes the details of the Minnesota dispute, to serve as a platform for analyzing those valuable lessons in future scholarship. Moreover, because the Minnesota dispute primarily concerned absentee ballots, an understanding of this episode is necessary for a thorough evaluation of the relative risks and benefits as the nation moves increasingly to vote-by-mail. Insofar as Minnesota's experience with its 2008 election shows potential pitfalls in the administration of absentee voting, the nation is in a position to learn from Minnesota's mistakes.
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