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October
30, 2002 9:15 a.m. |
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efore
last night's memorial service/political rally for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone,
Minnesota Democrats interrupted their grieving period long enough to file
the first lawsuit of Campaign 2002.
The suit concerns absentee balloting in the senatorial race between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Walter Mondale, who is expected to be named tonight to replace Wellstone on the ballot. On Monday, Minnesota state officials announced that if absentee voters have already cast ballots for Coleman, their votes will be counted by the normal process. But if absentee voters have already cast ballots for Wellstone, their ballots will not be counted. The voters will, instead, have to request another ballot or show up at the polls on Election Day.
The lawsuit was filed by the chairman of the state Democratic party on behalf of two Minnesota voters. One of those voters is a student at the University of Vermont who says she has already voted by absentee ballot for Wellstone. The other voter is a man who says he commutes between Minneapolis and California and is scheduled to be in California from October 30 until November 10. Both plaintiffs say they want a new supplemental ballot for the Senate race.
The suit concedes that Minnesota Secretary of State's office has already prepared a sample supplemental ballot (a final version can't be done until Democrats officially select their candidate tonight). But the lawsuit alleges the proposed ballot is "very confusing and likely to cause many voters to spoil their ballots."
The details of the suit suggest that if Mondale loses, Democrats are preparing to raise Florida-style objections to the conduct of the election. For example, Democrats claim the ballot is confusing because it asks voters to write an "X" by the name of the candidate for whom they want to vote. The regular ballot requires voters to darken a small box by the candidate's name, and Democrats allege the change will perplex voters.
In addition, the supplemental ballot instructs voters to "Put an (X) in the square opposite the name of each candidate you wish to vote for." That is standard wording for such ballots, but since the new supplemental ballot covers just one race, and since voters may only vote for only one choice for the Senate, Democrats claim the wording is "misleading and highly likely to result in many ballots being spoiled by voters inadvertently."
Finally, Democrats allege that the supplemental ballot is "particularly confusing" for non-English speakers. The suit asks the supreme court to order state officials to include instructions in Spanish, Russian, and Hmong.
In addition to their objections to the ballot itself, Democrats say they are angry at the decisions regarding the election made by Minnesota Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer, a Republican, and Attorney General Mike Hatch, a Democrat (only Kiffmeyer is named in the suit). The Secretary of State has instructed election officials to continue sending out the old absentee ballot as requests come in. It contains Wellstone's name, but voters who want to vote for the new Democratic candidate, presumably Mondale, may simply write that on the ballot and send it in. "You always have the option of writing in a name," Kiffmeyer has reminded voters on several occasions.
Democrats object. "The Secretary's decision is disrespectful to the Wellstone family," the lawsuit alleges, "and is likely to disenfranchise citizens who have no other choice, yet [emphasis in the original]. Local and county election officials should not send out or accept any more absentee ballots likely to be disregarded. Instead, the absentee voting process should be put on hold until voters are made aware of their new choice for the United States Senate."
That appears to be the key element of the suit. Democrats are asking state officials to stop mailing out absentee ballots until Mondale is officially named, which will not happen until tonight. New ballots cannot be printed until Thursday at the earliest, and would have to be mailed out after that. The election is on Tuesday. The intent of the suit appears to be to stop absentee voting for now, restart it so late that it cannot be completed on Election Day, and then, if Mondale loses, claim that potential Democratic voters were disenfranchised by the process.
Republicans are working to keep the absentee ballots moving. "It's important that the ballots go out," says Alex Vogel, general counsel of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "Otherwise, it's an attempt to stop the process, and that is an attempt to disenfranchise all the absentee voters."
Vogel and GOP staffers spent much of Tuesday checking with election boards across the state, making sure that the boards were still sending out absentee ballots. They were. "The reality is, voters can write in the person," Vogel says. "If you have the original ballot, you can write in the new candidate's name, or you can go to your local polling place on Election Day and get the supplemental."
Beyond their objections to the ballot itself, the Democrats' attempt to stop absentee voting also raises questions about the timing of the party's candidate selection process. Mondale emerged as the leading choice to replace Wellstone in the hours after Wellstone's death last Friday. Yet Democrats chose to wait until tonight to make Mondale their official candidate. "That makes it extremely tight," says Vogel. "By waiting, and then complaining about absentee ballots, they've really pushed this thing to the brink." The tactic seems guaranteed to produce confusion on Election Day.
Alan Weinblatt, the lawyer who filed the case for the state Democratic party, was not available for comment on Tuesday. Party lawyers in Washington say they were not told about the suit in advance and do not know its details.