Franken leads +225 (+21 and +14 of the "Nauen61" the Elections Contest Court has ordered into the "Ready to Count" pile at the the Secretary of State's office; all these voters have indicated they voted for Franken)= +260.
No orders of decisions from the Elections Contest Court as of this morning.
A motion to block counting 2 rejected absentee ballots for Franken (not included above) filed with a good chance for success due to good legal work by Team Coleman. Trial Observers are stunned to see these last 6 words used in a sentence without snark.
Political fanatic methadone, a bit of news and a couple personal updates past the Orange fold....
The group shuffles in, takes chairs quietly. Everyone looks at each other sideways, then breaks eye contact, stares at floor. Finally one brave soul takes a deep breath and steps to the front. Everyone else sighs secretly in relief as the standee says,
"Hi. My name is (your name).
The group responds with mostly genuine enthusiasm,
"Hi (your name)!"
"Um.... OK, here goes. I've been reading WineRev."
Entire group bursts into applause.
"I've been clean one day."
Another round of applause.....
Holy cow! I came back last night to look over the Wednesday diary and found 40 MORE Comments--- the bulk of them posted Thursday.
But then e-mails!? People dropping little messages saying I could at least post SOMETHING (one suggestion was to do a WineRev treatment "The sun rose in the east"... over the MN Senate recount. Well yes it did but.....)
Another made a truly tender and utterly sincere inquiry after my physical health (4th floor ICU for 7 hours, but I finally convinced them it was only a flesh wound!...... NOT! I kid, kid.)
Oh and no I was not abandoning you (as someone put it.)
Its just there really was NOTHING happening. Zero. Zip. Mitte midagi! The cobwebs grew up on all the media sites because there was no news from the ECC and until there is the news will be scarce. And there's no need to emulate the blond pole-dancers on Faux Noise and breathlessly pout out the latest twisted brain-plaque scrapings from McConnell or John-90%-is-not-a-high-enough-tax Boehner (What a maroon!)
Reading Court Filings (Proposed Findings of Fact)
Some of the hardcore (your treatment WILL take longer) read through both sides' findings of fact/ conclusions of law (FOFCOL?) and posted up their comments and reactions. The comments from Allan03 and ABowers13 and Clem Yeobright on the filings make for good reading, maybe better than the filings themselves.
Franken's is meticulous, thorough to the point of exhausting, and appropriately dismissive of the Coleman arguments. Apparently in the last third or so the Franken filing even switches pronoun use FROM "we hold/contend" and contestee contends" TO "The Court finds/holds..." That way if Hayden, Reilly and Marben would like to, they can simply drag and drop whole paragraphs into their decision and orders.
Coleman's is more of the same as the trial, circling back several times to how the Court ruled on Feb. 13th (they REALLY don't like that ruling; on that day the court ruled several categories of absentee ballots out of compliance with state law and refused to allow them to be counted. Its blatantly obvious the Coleman case was leaning hard on getting in a bunch of ballots that got tossed.) There are several written efforts to move the court off its "strict compliance" standard for absentee ballots to a friendlier "substantial compliance."
(As in, you know, strictly speaking did WineRev actually post on Thursday? Or did 40 new comments tacked onto Wednesday's diary ON THURSDAY make him substantially in compliance with a "daily diary" standard? Is it a right or a privilege to read one of these every day?)
What News there be
And there actually is, just a little. On Thursday Coleman filed an answer to a request for summary judgment filed by the Nauen group. (A group of 61 voters who voted absentee were informed their ballots had been rejected for some reason. Led by attorney Charles Nauen they have been pursuing a parallel case in the ECC to have their ballots counted. 35 have been admitted but the other 26 are hanging fire. These have been mostly Franken voters; at least the 35 ruled in have publicly declared so.)
Coleman (ironically) objected to 2 voters because they failed to meet the court's requirements for strict compliance with absentee voting law.
Katie Kaszynski is a MN absentee voter and college student in Illinois. They question if a) she is registered, b) her signature looks a LOT like her mother's c) the date Mom signed as a witness is several days after the ballot itself was signed so Mom could not have been present "witnessing" the signing.
Tempest Moore (really; that's her name. Hmmmm...... The grand-daughter (sequel of a sequel) of Stormy, by the Classics IV?) goes to college in Chicago. Team Coleman claims a) her witness did not register to vote until election day and the absentee ballot is dated late October, b) the ballot date and witness date are both Oct. 28 but the Ramsey county "date received" stamp in Oct. 27, and c) Tempest apparently misspelled her own name on the certificate card.
Coleman's side is not being petulant here (and certainly not petillant here; that would be the very slight, tongue tickling effervescence found a delightful, light and softly fruity white vinho verde from Portugal (about $7)--- I expect both words descend from a Latin root having something to do with the tongue; after all a petulant child may well stick out their tongue.) Actually Coleman's team here is on pretty solid ground.
In fact even though this is a defensive effort for Coleman (keeping Franken from adding votes, rather than going on offense and Coleman either adding his own votes or pulling some off of Franken's pile) its a good one, one they should have been doing all along, every single day of their case.
And I'll give 'em a point or two for table turning. They've been backed into a corner by Franken and the Court insisting on a strict compliance standard. Now they get to knock down 2 ballots on just that ground UNLESS (as they point out in making the motion) the court wants to move toward a "substantial compliance" (Coleman's only hope) standard. Indeed they even cite the Feb. 13 order as being the pivotal reason the court needs to strike down these 2 ballots.
Well played, Team Coleman. Too little. Too late. Shoulda, coulda...... but solid lawyering here.
PS1. In diary v.100 the Great Orange One, Markos himself, was kind enough to e-mail his most unworthy servant WineRev and grant a boon, that those who wished to throw farthings, shekels, ore, conch shells, sous, pence, pesetas, brass neck rings, etc to a paypal link in honor of 100 diaries on the same subject could do so. Some are still trickling in by surface mail, leery of sending electronically, inspired by the security shown by "Norm on the Web".
Well your servant is even more humbled by the outpouring from dozens of you (and I think I've got off thank yous to everyone but a couple are outstanding). I also promised 5% of the total would go to animal rescue here in MN, and 5% more to the Disabled American Veterans organization in honor of my dad.
Well both groups are going to get $58 and a letter explaining who this is coming from---YOU! You wonderful, amazing, compassionate, generous, caring, supportive people.
And yes, I will be attending NetRoots Nation in Pittsburgh in August thanks to all of you. Registration, airfare, hotel and eats...... my Lord. With God as my witness you people are indeed the makers of shalom and I am grateful and humbled beyond words.... so, with a full heart, all I can do is:
doff (DOFF!) my hat to each of you.
PS2. Collecting all these diaries into a book/e-book/really fat, long scroll/DVD/coloring book/action figures/website as posted in v. 95 is underway. It looks like a triumvirate of editor/co-ordinators are going to take it on and will be looking for help soon. 5 very busy people having insanely busy lives and spread across 4 time zones will have a conference call this Sunday to map out and parcel out things.
I'm less savvy about spreadsheets than Joe Friedberg but these three are already sounding like Lillehaug, Hamilton & Elias so I'm feeling in good hands so far. And the task has a certain, um.. mountainous character to it. One of the 3 who has some publishing chops tried laying out a few diaries and compressed comments on a typical paperback 5x8 format with usual margins and 10 point font and found these sample averaged 9 pages/ diary.
At diary 106 x 9 = 954. Without anything else like intro, title page, index, glossary (for petillant for instance.) 954! Thats a paperback thicker than it is tall or wide! Yikes!
Maybe we'll have to go Steve Jobs and make like the original iMac, available in colors. ("Collect the whole set!") But editing will be needed.
So..... we'll see.
Friday Morning Minnesota Media
The Federal Elections Commission decided the Democrats outside of MN can raise money for Franken's Recount expenses beyond earlier donation limits BUT left it up in the air whether the Franken campaign ITSELF can do so. Huh? Yeah, thats what Chris Steller writes at the Minnesota Independent. Don't worry. Its not you. NOBODY gets it.
http://minnesotaindependent.com/...
Aaron Landry at MNPublius has a great little catch from the local all-sports radio station KFAN. The station had an interview with..... Joe Friedberg(?!), lead Coleman attorney. Joe comes across as a realist and concedes a) Franken leads and his lead will likely GROW as the ECC rules b) they were aiming for an appeal all along-- and that he expects the MN Supreme Court to rule QUICKLY. Hmmmm.
Short but interesting:
http://mnpublius.com/
Now fair warning again. If there IS NO NEWS I won't post but if something breaks you'll get it on the diaries and I'll have at it the next morning. Take it easy with all the latest from yust southeast of Lake Wobegon.
Shalom.