In the 2001 debacle in Florida, even when the FL courts ruled that the counting should continue and be expanded, I knew that Gore was destined to lose, because the Republicans could be expected to challenge every adverse decision to the highest court, and if they lost in that venue, to challenge the result on the floor of the Congress, because the Constitution ultimately leaves it up to Congress to decide whether a state's electors should be seated, and you know the Bush campaign would have taken it to a congressional vote had they lost at the state and federal court levels, and no matter how ugly it looked, Bush would have won the election because a GOP congress would seat his electors in Florida. Partisan politics at its finest, and it was a certainty, even if Gore had won his case at SCOTUS.

I see no reason why Franken should view this any differently. Unless he is satisfied that all votes have been fairly counted, he should fight this to the last available venue, which is the Democratically controlled Senate which is vested with the ultimate decision on who it is going to seat. The Constitution mandates that a political body will make the final decision if the opposing parties don't resolve a dispute over who won without the need to involve that political body. If this goes to the Senate, and Franken has a legitimate argument that he should be declared winner, as you know he will if he takes it that fat (whether based on disqualified provisional ballots, interpretations of undervotes or overvotes, etc.), you know he will win if it voted upon in the Senate. The GOP would do no less, you can be assured, if the shoe were on the other foot.

So I applaud the Franken campaign for fighting. When this is over, what will not be remembered is who was the nicest guy of the two (even though Franken would win that easily) or if the winner took the race in a manner that goes over some imaginary line that pundits draw when the other guy looks like he might win a close race. No, the only thing anybody will remember is who won, who gets to be seated as the senator from MN, and who gets to vote for SCOTUS appointments, cloture votes, budgets. universal health care, and som many other things of vital importance to all of us. I hope Franken fights to the finish, yields nothing to Coleman, and wins however it needs to get done. No cheating, but no pussing out either.

This may be a naive question but why don't they just do a revote?

Because Georgia state law requires a runoff if no one gets 50% and Minnesota doesn’t.

It may be messy, but Minnesota is following its state law. They count all of the ballots, look for the voter’s intent, and then see who is ahead. That person is the winner.

As a citizen of Georgia, I think it's pretty cool that we require a majority of votes to seat a Senator (and believe me, there is not much I think is cool about politics down here). We have a slim chance of winning. The last time there was a senate runoff ('92, I think), the one who took the plurality in the GE lost the runoff, so there is precedent. Sadly, it was the Dem who took the fall that time. Last time, the libertarian votes swung to the republican. The reason the Dem took the GE was because GA was still pretty dixiecrat. It's really going to depend on turnout.

The question this time is where will the libs swing. The libertarian party was against the Iraq war. They were also against the wall street bailout that Chambliss voted for (and which Martin has slyly railed against—though he would no doubt have voted for it if in office at the time). Right now, I am pondering the the thought of sending out a "neutral" get out the vote e-mail to my office mates. Most of them (close to 95%) are liberals, but they are also not tuned in. So, many of them may not even know about the runoff. The head of my dept. is an Obama guy (violating company policy with is bumper sticker), so I might get away with a slap on my wrist if I did this.