Comments on: Election Commish Live: Which Votes Count?

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 14:44:43 +0000

The reply from Wieder on Dascola's behalf was filed this morning (July 10) before the 10 a.m. deadline. [.pdf of July 10, 2014 reply brief] From the introductory passages in the reply brief:

Defendants do not even attempt to state an argument against granting the relief requested by Plaintiff. Instead, they pretend that they are bystanders to an alleged dispute between Plaintiff and the Bureau of Elections and ask this Court to provide “guidance to the parties on this issue.” The Motion is, essentially, unopposed and the relief sought should be granted. ... Defendants spend considerable effort to direct blame away from themselves and onto the Washtenaw County Clerk for the delivery of defective ballots to Ann Arbor Third Ward voters. It was, in fact, the City Clerk who, without inspecting them, delivered 392 defective ballots to absentee voters. This is more of a public relations effort by the Defendants than a serious attempt to address the important legal issues. Who is to blame is not one of those issues.

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 03:03:48 +0000

The city's response to Wieder's motion was filed today (July 9). It takes no position on the question of how the ballots should be counted. But the entire response brief, including exhibits, runs 49 pages. [.pdf of city of Ann Arbor's July 9, 2014 response]

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 13:47:09 +0000

At the end of the election commission's July 8 meeting, it appeared that both Tom Wieder and Stephen Postema were not sanguine about the prospects that a ruling could be obtained from the federal court as early as next Tuesday, July 15. That's when the election commission meets next. They seemed to be hoping for a decision from the court as quickly as a federal court could act – which they did not seem to think was all that quickly. But the court seems to be handling at least some of the mechanical and logistical issues very quickly, and seems eager to expedite. Later in the day, on July 8, Wieder filed a motion for expedited consideration of his earlier motion, filed July 7, which asks the court to enjoin the city from counting votes in Ward 3 races, if they are cast with one of the incorrectly printed ballots. And on the same day, the court granted that motion and ordered a briefing schedule that requires the city to respond to Wieder's motion by 8 a.m. on Thursday, July 10. The three days for that response is leisurely compared to the two hours Wieder will have to reply to the city's response, as it would be due at 10 a.m. the same morning. Given Postema's indication at the meeting that the city would be concurring in asking that the court decide the question, but would not be taking a position one way or another on how the question should be decided, it's somewhat unlikely that the city's response, when it's filed, would provoke a reply from Wieder. But Postema was expecting to receive additional information from the Secretary of State later in the day on July 8 – information that he wanted to incorporate into the city's response. So it's not certain what the city's response will actually say. [.pdf of July 8, 2014 motion for expedited schedule] [.pdf of July 8, 2014 order on expedited schedule]