Thursday, November 29, 2007

Mr. Lipsey's appeal was dismissed.

Here is the court's opinion, written by Judge Ulysses G. Thibodeaux.

The Sentinel has excerpted the opinion here. It's a little easier to read.

UPDATE: My opinion, which is not that of an election lawyer, is that Mr. Lipsey was between a rock and a hard place concerning due diligence prior to the vote. If he had followed up on his allegations that some Concordia Parish Sheriff's Office employees were being forced to register to vote illegally, and to vote for Mr. Maxwell (beats me how their votes could be proved), he would have endangered some jobs and aroused ire among the very employees that he would have headed had he won. I suppose there could have been some surprise challenges on election day.

One of the requirements for holding a position in the CPSO is to reside within Concordia Parish, as is one of the requirements for voting in Concordia Parish. So each employee voter that he outed for illegal registration due to residency requirements was also holding their job against the rules*.

That's no way to make friends.

UPDATE II: Not just the state of Louisiana is loathe to overturn elections. Better to make your case and and have good turnout on election day. One of Mr. Lipsey's problems regarding fraud is that only something around 7,000 of 13,000 registered voters voted at all. He had a large excess pool to draw from.

On the other hand, in one of the elections Huey Long had control of, St. Bernard Parish turned out more than 3,000 votes in a parish with 2,500 something registered voters.

* There is nothing illegal about sheriff's office employees living outside the parish, Lyman says. A handbook requirement.

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