A little here, a little there. Hints of streamlining showing up. An order from the Court to the Franken side.
Franken leads +249.
No decision from MN Supreme Court on Franken's motion to force a Certificate of Election. (Day 13 since hearing.)
For a crisp round up of yesterday Jay Weiner at the Minnesota Post is quite good here:http://www.minnpost.com/...
For a long, lingering round up of yesterday, sort of creme brulee for breakfast I hope, try it with a bit of Orange marmalade just past the fold........
1) Election Contest Court (ECC): Episode XXIII
I don't know. The ECC keeps making noises about streamlining the case so it slips through the air with less resistance and more speed; you know, going from a station wagon to a Ferrari. (Maybe even a Ferrari-Carano Siena for a red blend? Or the Chardonnay on sale @ $21? Even the Reserve Chardonnay (delectable if you like chardonnay at all) is on sale @ $34, down from $49.).
The ECC keeps saying "streamline" but then every day Trimble, Knaak, Langdon and Friedberg keep showing up in court at the Coleman table. With those guys around the best the ECC can do for streamlining is riveting chrome "Dagmars" on one end and 14 inch tail fins on the back end of an oversize chest freezer skidding down the black diamond run called "Resurrection" at Crested Butte, CO. Such a beast doesn't ski well at all, banging from tree to ballot and screeching to a halt on a rock outcrop. It sinks up to its lid handle in a snowbank at every witness. Its motor is overheating, trying to keep the Coleman case frozen because if it ever thaws out it'll be like the flowering of a Titan Arum.http://www.news.wisc.edu/...
Tuesday everyone started late (10:00 rather than 9:00; a bit unusual. The ECC has kept pretty good starting and stop times.) Friedberg had Robert Hiivala (GREAT Finnish name that one!), the Wright County auditor, on the stand. (Wright County, NW of Minneapolis; Bachmann district and strongly R; went for Coleman about 51-29-- rest to Barkley & Niemackl.) The Coleman attorney at least was saying, "This GROUP of ballots was rejected for mis-matching signatures." (Yay for "GROUP of ballots."---streamlining!)
BUT the Court order on Friday said rejected absentee ballots that either side introduces need to meet EVERY criteria for acceptance (ie, pass all 4 legal tests.) Granted the signatures have to match. But so do the address between application and ballot; the voter must be registered; the voter must NOT have voted in person.
So David Lillehaug of the Franken Team objected to Friedberg's group of ballots since they didn't meet the other criteria. (As in "there's other failures here so why even bring these up?"--more streamlining)
Lillehaug then got up and laid out how some of these ballots had additional problems, such as a residential address in another precinct (or even another county), which the court has already ruled would disqualify them. (TPM)
Objection was sustained as the opposing counsel showed the Coleman Team what Friday's order means in court. Friedberg even apologized to the Court for not knowing the ballots had other problems. (In hockey terms this is, "Lillehaug staples Friedberg to the boards in front of the Coleman bench. Puck pops loose. Lillehaug over the blue line and now a vicious snapshot just under the crossbar! Oh, buy Sam a drink and get his dog one too! What a goal!" (With a hat tip to the great Mike Lange, radio voice of the Pittsburgh Penguins.) NOT good for your case when attorney for the other side takes you apart like that and the Court agrees. (Sounds like double streamlining with ECC and Team Franken on a 2 on 1 rush at the blue line......)
Well Friedberg finished with Mr. Hiivala around 11:25... OK, pretty speedy for one of the Berg Boys. Then Presiding Judge Hayden called one of those judge plays you all know, (Freidberg, play right wing on Trimble's line this shift. Change it up! C'mon! Get your breezers over the boards!...... OOPS! Wrong play) "Mr. Friedberg, call your next witness."
And silence fell on the room like a tent with a snapped ridgepole. "Mr. Friedberg?....You don't have another witness until 1:00pm?.....Court is in recess until 1:00pm." Judge Hayden was NOT a happy person as she called this recess. Again, the ECC judges have been pretty good at keeping start and stop times and the lunch break. There was PLENTY of time for a witness late morning..... and Team Coleman was NOT ready. Yes they have been NOT ready a lot in this case but this is the first time it really impinged on court management and time keeping and Judge Hayden was annoyed and everybody knew it.
Lawyers in the room, correct me if I'm wrong, but when 1 judge in your case (Thursday) laughs at one of your attorneys and says through a faint smile, "I'll ask the questions here" and another judge cracks the gavel at you like she'd like to have your thumb on the gavel's sound block, is your case going well? Is the Court making up its mind?
2) Coleman Strategy?
Is there one, other than ennui rampant on a field of tedium? The Big E over at MN Progressive Project thinks there is: the current Coleman shadow-boxing is NOT trying to win the case in the ECC. It is trying to set up grounds for an appeal, not so much to the MN Supreme Court (where their batting average has been less than stellar) than in FEDERAL court, on the "equal protection" line. Link:http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/
Eric Kleefeld of Talking Points Memo has the linked story here:http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Jay Weiner, Minn Post reports:
Ginsberg (Tuesday) criticized the judges’ Friday decision. At that time, the three judges wrote there was "no systemic problem with the election." (A fairly weighty pronouncement! WineRev)
Today, Ginsberg said: "I don’t know how you can say there’s not a systemic problem when you have Scott County saying one thing and Carver County saying they do something completely different."
....................Is Ginsberg laying the groundwork for an appeal?
No, he said, although Elias opined otherwise. (WineRev agrees with Elias. This is Republican Reverse Projection all over the place: "We have no intention whatsoever of..." until tomorrow they do just that....) Ginsberg said he wants these three judges to address the problem.
But he called the election "fatally flawed if we go along on this path" of different counties counting differently.
Oh Rot and Rubbish, Mr. Ginsberg! This election was fairly, openly and meticulously run. The recount was likewise carefully done; mistakes were discovered and corrected (except in about 200 cases where YOUR side PREVENTED them from being corrected!) The law was followed. AND as of Friday the Elections Contest Court of the State of Minnesota in the Matter of the United States Senate Seat of November 4, 2008 said, unanimously, in their considered legal opinion, there was "no systemic problem with the election."
Now you get up in front of microphones and start bleating, "this election was fatally flawed." What nonsense! Did you scrape that idea off the back floor of a South Philly taxi? Flawed? Why? Because your guy ain't winning? Because you couldn't game this one? Because there are too many legal barriers erected against "people" like you for you to break through?
"Fatally Flawed"?! Fatal to continued development of proto-fascism, yes. Fatal to your idea that elections are shams, a modern "opiate of the people" to let them think they actually mean something, yes. Fatal to power unbridled, yes. Fatal to manipulation, trial by media, yes. Fatal to bringing in Jim "The Fixer" Baker to bail out another Bush-style lint-brain, yes. (One day the hammer is gonna fall on that gangster mouthpiece too.) Fatal to flying in a gang of penny-loafered, polo shirted, two-legged noisemakers hired from "Jackboots R Us" like you and your mob did in Miami 8 years ago, yes.
You're in trouble Ginsberg, and your case is sagging like Freidberg's white belly over swim trunks on a Florida beach. All you've got left is to try and get this carcass out of the Minnesota Courts where its being sliced apart like Bruce Lee and 6 knives meeting a side of beef and into the federals. (Quick strum of Spanish chords on a guitar...) But theeese time, gringo, the federales ain't gonna save Norm's bacon either (it wouldn't be kosher for 1 thing.)
3) A New Measurement of the Universe
You've read a lot about the "universe" of rejected absentee ballots. After 933 IMproperly rejected absentees (as in correcting some mistakes by local officials) were counted on Jan. 3 the universe had just under 11,000 ballots. It shrank to 4797 as of Jan. 23 (last day of pre-trial filings, confirmed by the ECC on 2/2.) Another 174 late ballots were excluded 2/9, bringing the size down to 4623. Friday's Court order lopped off some more, to about 3300 according to Ginsberg for Team Coleman yesterday.
It is out of these remaining 3300 or so that the Coleman side MUST convince the court to admit and count at least 250 in order to overcome Franken's +249 lead. Since Coleman does NOT know how those 3300 ballots are cast (they are still sealed; no one has opened them since the voters sealed them up), although he has chosen them from pro-Coleman precincts, he needs more than 250 for cushion. A lot more. Maybe 15% of those ballots will be for Barkley or other 3rd party candidates and thence of no use to Norm. Absentee ballots opened so far have favored Franken net due to Democratic party efforts and the Obama campaign to push for early voting. (Since MN does not have early voting, absentee voting served as a substitute.)
But for Coleman's hopes the votes have to come from these 3300 (and shrinking. We may see more exclusions.)
Now all of the above has applied to the Coleman case. Coleman is suing Franken in this civil action so he has to put on his case: call witnesses, expert testimony, forensics, the whole bit.
But in a court of law, in a case like this, the "contestee" (Franken) gets to mount his own case as soon as the Coleman side announces, "Plaintiff rests." So Franken gets to call witnesses, have forensics ("I certainly hope so, my friend"-- WineRev slips on dark glasses) and BRING IN HIS OWN ABSENTEE BALLOTS from among the rejected ones.
How many? Ah, the Franken side in theory gets to start from the opening 11,000. Their "universe" is NOT cut down to 4797/4623/3300-- that is truly the COLEMAN universe. Or to put it more crudely, if Norm gets to pick cherries (like his original 654) AL gets to pick grapes too.
Now Franken's team originally knew the Coleman side was flaunting these 654 super Normie ballots. In response, during the pre-trial maneuvering Franken's side notified the Court (and perforce Coleman's side via "discovery") that they were prepared to drop 771 grape-picked ballots into the wine vat.
As court opened Tuesday Judge Hayden announced for the ECC that the Franken side will be allowed to amend their initial filing of 771. The specific ballots Franken's side wants to ADD to his Universe are due to be filed by this Friday. Sooo... the Franken "universe" looks to be expanding some (in line with most astronomical theories; man, talk about reality based!).
Given how tight the legal work of Franken's side has been so far you can believe these ballots will be A) grape picked from every Franken vineyard from Pipestone to Grand Marais, B) will be in order, will strongly support the Franken effort, and will have a higher than average chance of being admitted, C) will probably be EACH engrossed on parchment and delivered by the UpTake's JASON Barnett wrapped in a golden fleece to the Court.
If pressed together correctly in the final stage of this case and allowing a fairly quick fermentation by winemaker Lillehaug et Cie. these ballots should produce a luscious Frankenia Beaujolais '09.
(Saucy, smile-making aroma; Minnesota lingonberry and northwoods fruit notes with full-bodied celebration; deep, satisfying and long-lingering finish. Drink now through 2014. 1 case made (and how!), but endlessly reproducible every time a progressive vote goes our way in the Senate.)
Wednesday Morning Minnesota Media
Pat Doyle's story in the Star Tribune gets a fairly bland headline this morning "Carver County....a focus of Coleman's Argument." The crux of the story seemed to be here:
On Tuesday, Carver County elections supervisor Kendra Olson testified that her elections officials checked witness addresses and the state voter registration database. "That is why there is such a higher number of rejected ballots in Carver County," she said.
State statutes say the return envelope of an absentee voter must be signed by the voter and be witnessed "by a person who is registered to vote in Minnesota" or by a notary public.
Scott County elections supervisor Mary Kay Kes and Wright County elections overseer Robert Hiivala said their counties don't check whether a witness is registered.
You know for a "fatally flawed" election that seems like awful thorough work by Kendra Olson and her folks over in Carver County (SW of Minneapolis; new money, gated-community wannabes; home of the WineRev's wine shop). The Berg boys are seizing on the difference between Carver, Scott & Wright as "proof" of "different strokes for different folks"--- "unequal protection."
On the other hand even the Star Trib blogging folk point out a certain irony:
Reaping what you're sowing
Carver County is only practicing the standard Republican strategy, that is, the fewer the votes, the better our chances. Now that Norm is a few votes short he wants a statewide standard.
I understand that Coleman's argument is that some counties may have violated the law by not checking if the witnesses were registered voters, so his proposed solution is to count more ballots that violate the law? That doesn't sound like a very viable legal argument. Both of the examples he used Scott and Wright counties went strongly for Coleman, so it doesn't work to argue that Franken got an unfair advantage by those counties violating the law.
These are nicely said, but SOMEHOW I think irony is lost upon the Colemaniks........
OK hope this will hold you until 9:00amCT when everybody meets at the hot stove...The UpTake.com for today's ECC action. (The UpTake & their fans/friends are having a St. Paul meet-up tonight. From the sound of things the Groveland Tap on St. Clair Ave. better have extra help ready starting at 8:00pm. (I think its the UpTake's synergistic compliment to the Obama stimulus package.)
I have the later shift today so I'll blog a bit this morning with you. Thats the latest from yust southeast of Lake Wobegon.
Shalom.