Either Coleman (or theoretically Franken if result of adding in those votes is a Coleman victory) can appeal to the Supreme Court of Minnesota. Should the SCoM overturn it, then the ECC (or theoretically an ECC composed of different people) has to look at things again and my guess is that no one gets seated until July.

If the SCoM agrees with the ECC, they can legally order Gov Pawlenty (R) to sign the document that agrees that the person determined by the ECC was elected Senator. If Pawlenty refuses, he can be Jailed until he does so, I believe.

Once he gets that document, the Democrats will present him as the new Senator from Minnesota and I believe that the only way that the Republicans could stop it is to fillibuster the attempt to seat him. I *really* doubt that the Republicans can keep all 41 members in a fillibuster. While someone like Graham or DeMint might be willilng to go all the way, I doubt someone like Lugar or the Maine sisters would back it.

Once he gets seated, I *seriously* doubt that any federal court would remove him, even the US Supreme court has said the Senate has control over its membership.

From examples such as that I conclude that the standard you appear to be looking for is unobtainable. I daresay any statewide election would fail to meet it. During the recount a number of decisions were made and agreed to be the Coleman team. In fact it was Coleman himself who was essentially against count-ever-vote when he repeatedly refused to have any of the improperly rejected absentee ballots counted at all until mandated to do so by the court. Once behind he changed his tune about what should be counted and has been changing his mind any time he thinks it could help him. The incompetence of Coleman’s recount team cannot be understated.

I would also point out that problems with the voter registration system were addressable during the recount for absentee and/or provisional ballots by finding them and bringing them before the court. In fact I thought that was part of the reason for taking the state to court in the first place. The fact that Coleman’s team managed to fail so often to present evidence that all 4 requirements for a vote to count for so many ballots is either incompetence on their part or problems with the ballot itself. In fact they went so far as to present evidence that explicitly contradicted those requirements and begged the court to count them anyway. What kind of legal argument is that? Either way the unanimous court decisions would seem to indicate that it’s pretty black and white about what was presented to the judges to rule on.

You didn’t mention it explicitly but the 133 missing ballot issue gets brought up all the time by Coleman. How exactly is NOT counting 133 voters who were clearly present on election day based upon the sign in sheets trying to count every vote? Consistency again… Give Franken credit. He really did say keep counting every legal vote and never wavered even after he was ahead.

I’m guessing this thing gets wrapped up next week as there is an insanely low chance that Coleman could win 85% or whatever of the new votes to be counted.