More voters testify, as do election officials from Duluth.
As predicted Monday, Team Franken files Motion to Dismiss, asking either the entire or parts of the the Coleman case be ruled out.
Franken leads +246
Kossack Vote for America put up an excellent diary toward evening yesterday with an EASY walk-thru of a 1973(!) paper from Columbia that may spell doom for Coleman's chances just on the basis of the ballots left in question. Excellent links at end of diary:http://www.dailykos.com/...
Election Contest Court (ECC): Episode XXXIV: Origami
Life in front of the court cameras continues clicking along like the reel on a fishing line on a slow troll (the good kind), just click, click, click. Its starting to give people hope that Al Franken's comment over the weekend that the trial might finish in 2-3 weeks might be true..... and even better, it might be on the shorter end of that. For instance you'll see at the end of the piece Grace Kelly at the MN Progressive Project has HOPE growing in her heart:http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/...
Soooo.... looking at the calendar, 2 weeks from the opening of the Franken case would be Mar. 17...St. Patrick's Day. OK, I'm game. Nothing like the luck of the Irish to bring good fortune to a "New York" Jew running for Senate from Minnesota.
"May the fumes from the Guiness keg waft over your pastrami on rye and wash down your krummkakke".... I'll send that over to Temple so the rabbi can warm up for the Wednesday Night Lenten Services in Latin at the Lutheran church. (The choir will sing a Bach chorale in plainsong mode while dancing to "Hava Nagila, Have 2 Nagilas..." Oy vey!)
Rats! The entire lead screwed up royally. No hope of recovery.... just move on......
Duluth's Day in Court
More voters/ witnesses whose absentee ballots were rejected. But as the afternoon session came on so also came Jeff Cox to the stand. Cox is City elections director for Duluth, and the person at the center of Duluth's effort to get paid more for his time testifying. (Duluth lost that battle; $105 for the day is going to be IT. Worse, testimony did NOT finish; Cox resumes today, so another day of lost time, offset only by the statutory $20/day).
While Cox's testimony may seem routine the issue at stake in Duluth is not. Apparently several dozen (I remember the number 77 but that could be off) absentee ballots were rejected by Duluth election officials because the DATES did not match between the voter signing the secrecy envelope and the witness's signature.
BUT then officials went and read the manual (and underlying law) and found such a match of dates did not appear and was not required. BUT when they sought to correct the error and admit these ballots Team Coleman objected and they've been in limbo ever since.
Now Duluth is heavily Democratic and there is good reason to believe these ballots if counted would break strongly for Franken, so here is a chance to get IN a group of votes wholesale rather than retail--- and Team Coleman will fight this for the same reasons. So don't be fooled by the debates and arguments over this witness-- its a bigger stake than usual that both sides are playing for.
Motions on Paper
The paper folding is getting fierce. Team Coleman filed a "motion to intervene" (which I haven't read; I'm tired of crayon) and Mr. Nauen ("the Swamp Fox") filed papers for his latest group of 30 voters.
But the BIG news at the filing window was from the Franken side. As promised Wednesday and predicted earlier, the Franken camp delivered a Motion for Dismissal, 29 pages in PDF here:
http://www.pdfdownload.org/...
I am not a lawyer and anyone who IS has seen my ignorance in these posts and have been kind to correct me. Before this series I think the only published legal document I ever sat down and read through was the execrable Bush v. Gore.
But folks, if you have never read one, click on the link above, take a long pull on the coffee cup and take it slowly. It restores my faith in the LAW and how it should be practiced.
Of course, having a few... leanings..... in this case I can also appreciate the utter demolition this piece does to the Coleman case. I know, I know, its only one side of the argument, but if the ECC rules for Franken in the end as having the most votes, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if they lifted phrases, even lines, from what is written here.... its that well said. (Your Franken donation dollars at work! Put an ".09" on the end so Al knows these bucks are Orange:https://secure.alfranken.com/...
What Franken Asks to Heave Across the Ice
As predicted Monday here Team Franken filed to have the ECC dismiss the whole Coleman claim towed away like a lutefisk-stuffed '87 Yugo (Joe Friday, Dragnet: "representing the cutting edge of Serbo-Croatian automotive technology"). Failing that they ask for summary judgments against parts of the Coleman case.
Now since "even a drunken moose finds a tree once in a while" theory, even Ben Ginsberg agrees with me that some of this is routine when a case switches from one side to the other presenting. SOP for lawyers to cover all the bases (and you never know!). But more serious is the request for partial dismissals.
Running down several of the particulars, Team Franken asks the ECC to dismiss specifically:
> the Minneapolis 133-- the precinct where the ballots were lost but the voters signed in and voted on the machines;
> the claim of "duplicate/ double counted ballots".
They ask these mostly on grounds Coleman DIDN'T PROVE THEM, which Ben the Ginz will no doubt complain is an vicious example of the liberal bias of reality.
Somebody (likely a BUNCH of somebodies) on the Franken Team has spent days dismantling the original Coleman "Notice of Contest", that is, THE original filing to launch the entire ECC. This is where you lay out just exactly what you intend to "conTEST", point by point.
And point by point the Franken Motion goes under the hood like an auto mechanic on 4 hits of speed and 3 espresso ultra grandes who has just been won a brand new set of platinum pneumatic power tools made by Porsche:
>> "Unidentified errors, mistakes and other irregularities" including "matters and things"---- Team Franken is ready to respond but....to WHAT?
>> Improperly rejected absentee ballots: (A Lenten penance)
Team Franken points out an absentee ballots must climb several circles of "Il Purgatorio" before it can pass into the globes of "Countedness."
They (gloriously) note the ever-shrinking-ness of the Coleman universe of ballots as these fell short of blessedness, stricken by their ballot sinfulness: (Remember how good the Franken Team's numbers have been? Well the crew has been saving up for this part!)
4787 (1/23: Notice of Contest)
4623 (2/3: 174 late ballots not allowed)
3687 (2/13--Friday the 13th Order, eliminating a dozen categories of absentees).
Then Coleman withdrew 136 during the course of the 5 weeks (of legal dentistry without benefit of painkillers) and another 601 initially claimed for signature mis-matches, so down to 2950.
THEN, "Contestant failed to introduce ballot envelopes for 1473 (of the 2950)"-- and THAT alone (no introduction into evidence) TAKES THEM OFF THE BOARD.
Down to 1477 (Easily the lowest number yet)...BUT 5 of these were part of the 933 opened and counted on 1/3 and so are IN.... but no longer at issue.
1472: of these in 1151 instances (YIKES!) Contestant did not introduce both the ballots AND the absentee ballot application, which makes it impossible to compare addresses (Which must match: legal reason #1 for rejection) or to check of the signatures match (part of legal reason #2 for rejection.)
Leaves 321.... and almost all of these fail for registration lack (legal reason #3) or the voter voted in person (legal reason #4)....
LEAVING 9! Yep, NINE!
By the beard of St. Olaf and the iron ore of Kiruna, is that ALL? MAN! Let Norm have his 9, move AL to +237 and I will GLADLY hang up my keyboard TODAY!
The Motion shoots down (by name) the votes of 16 of the 21 voters who testified for Norm, and notes the other 5 were withdrawn by Team Coleman.
As they wound down I was tickled at how they went after EVERY Ginsbergian claim, even shooting down both the "let the ECC recount all 286,000 absentee ballots" nonsense and the "lets set aside this election and order a new one", a opium eater's delusion of preposterous dimensions.
"Contestants offer no Minnesota authority in support of their position" but the Franken team offered a couple precedents from the opposite side, one from 1986.... and one (I KNEW they were good but this is really cracking the law books) FROM 1865! That is not a typo.... they cited a case in their favor (Taylor v. Taylor) from 7 years after MN became a state.
(Good grief, I half expect them to produce a hand-written comment on Taylor v. Taylor from Abraham Lincoln!)
Friday Court Actions:
Testimony will resume from Duluth City Clerk Jeff Cox (who has had to spend the night in the Twin Cities, with the city of Duluth footing the bill somehow with money the simply don't have.)
UPDATE: Bloggers advise Mr. Cox DID finish yesterday and was excused, so they did make it back last night (presumeably) and saved a day's work for Duluth.
But in the afternoon we will maybe get some real legal debate.
If you follow the link and skim the citations you'll get a real feel for the flow, the force and the elegance of the Franken team's talent. AND they are expected to argue the motion in orals this afternoon in front of the ECC. So more elegance magnified by eloquence.
Prediction: The ECC will take it "under advisement". I don't think they'll accept the whole thing..... but they may well rule this weekend or Monday on some of the partial claims.
ALSO in the afternoon we may hear, either in court or directly, the pile 3A data the Secretary of State's office has now from around the state. This batch of ballots started at about 1500 but those that have a correctly filled in registration card and are otherwise good to vote will be lower than this, perhaps as few as 100. We'll see.
This batch of Pile 3A ballots is significant in that it is a fair size group of ballots yet to be counted that the ECC will order counted. The other batches are the ~400 (393-418) remaining "Pile 5", 21 of the Nauen61, and some stray ones here and there.
The voters Franken is calling this week and next (23 the first day, 17 more the second, and more yet Thursday) are voters/ballots the ECC will need to rule on, along with the 21 who testified for Coleman. (Of course those 21 have been argued against by Franken, above.)
When the Franken side "rests it case" doubtless the Coleman team will also filed a Motion to dismiss/summary judgment/directed verdict, likewise with a request for partial claims to be granted, arguing against each of the Franken witnesses.
Man am I beat.... I gotta get some sleep tonight or I won't be worth the paper I'm printed on.... we'll see if the morning news brings more......
Friday Morning Minnesota Media
Jay Weiner at the Minn Post covers this more concisely in his write-up. Jay is "fair and balanced" in that he actually quotes Ben Ginzberg from the hall of outer darkness "where they wail and gnash their teeth" as Scripture describes it:http://www.minnpost.com/...
Pat Doyle is alright for the Star Trib, enough to probably rile up the Reichwing. He opens with several paragraphs on Franken's motion to dismiss, which even the headline writer agreed was the story of the day "Franken's team asks for dismissal". Doyle quotes Elias as admitting there will likely be more than 9 ballots eventually added to the totals, but "we're talking about dozens, not hundreds."
http://www.startribune.com/...
OK I hope this will hold you. This diary had to be one of the hardest to write in the whle string. I've been hit by a HUGE wave of "GET IT OVER WITH" and its hard to swim against surf like that.
OH yes, again if you'd like to chip in on a discussion about turning all this into a book (best-seller; author photo on back, Irish setter at feet, tweed jacket, in front of fireplace, smoking pipe of Maui Wowie) I'll put up a diary Sunday afternoon at 1:00pmCT. Details and topics at end of YESTERDAY's diary.
Off to the early shift at the wineshop. Thats the latest from yust southeast of Lake Wobegon.
Shalom.