Reply #25: "prima facia" = "obvious" [View All]

[intheflow]

I had to look it up, but here's a site from Moritz College of Law I found useful and interesting on the subject:

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/campaign_finance_fed03.html

Excerpt:
"When allegations of improper coordination arise, evidence of actual coordination is often very difficult to find. The proverbial "smoking gun" would be a memo or an exchange of e-mails describing the coordination, but such documents are often unavailable. In most instances, circumstantial evidence — such as statistical correlations of advertising purchases or a cross-over of employees — may be all that exists to suggest coordination. Indeed, in this campaign season, the allegations of improper coordination leveled against the Kerry campaign have been based on these kinds of circumstantial evidence. The question, then, is whether such circumstantial evidence is enough to prove improper coordination."

Edited to give a heads up that this article is about campaign finance reform, but I posted it b/c I think the implications re: prima facia are relevant.