Former Sen. Norm Coleman’s legal team has rested. After five weeks of testimony from voters and election officials, they have finished making their case, and the gist of their argument is this: the election contest was rife with errors and the certification of Al Franken as the victor by 225 votes should be invalidated. Tomorrow Al Franken’s legal team will begin making its own case, which attorney Marc Elias predicts will take two to three weeks. Franken’s attorneys, however, will present a much sunnier assessment of the state’s election system. “Minnesotans have a lot to be proud of,” Elias said on a conference call with reporters this afternoon. Continue Reading
The three judges who will decide whether Norm Coleman prevails in his election contest of Minnesota’s Senate recount limited their scope late today by ruling out re-examination of at least 12 out of 19 ballot categories. “[T]he facts presented thus far do not show a wholesale disenfranchisement of absentee voters in the 2008 general election,” the judges wrote in a 17-page order and memorandum (pdf). “[T]here is no systemic problem of disenfranchisement in the state’s election system, including in its absentee-balloting procedures.”
At a hearing Thursday, former Sen. Norm Coleman had argued that most kinds of ballots in the court’s 4,800-ballot pool be counted, while challenger Al Franken — who still holds a 225-vote lead from the recount — had argued for far fewer. var mnindyHeadline = “MORE FROM”; var mnindyHeadline2 = “Michigan Messenger”; The upshot, according to The UpTake, is that the court’s pool has been cut to about 3,500 ballots — with the onus on Coleman to show ballots were lawfully cast, not only wrongfully rejected. In ruling categories of rejected ballots out of further examination, the judges said that non-registered voters’ votes were not cast legally, even if the voters’ failure to register was somehow the fault of election officials. Continue Reading
After three weeks of tediously reviewing absentee ballots one by one, the Election Contest Tribunal has ordered the legal teams of former Republican Senator Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken to prepare arguments on 19 differnet categories of absentee ballots. The court will hear arguments this Thursday (2/12/2009) at 1:00PM CST. The parties must argue if a category of absentee ballot was “not legally cast under relevant law.” (emphasis added) The three-judge panel will then streamline the trial by removing certain categories of absentee ballots from contention. You can find the order here [PDF]
The campaigns have filed their briefs ahead of the hearing tomorrow. Continue Reading
With two words many observers have been thirsting for — “streamline proceedings” — the three judges in Minnesota’s senate election trial signalled late Tuesday they’ve finally had enough of after 12 days of drip-drip-drip testimony on individual ballots. They ordered lawyers for Al Franken and Norm Coleman late Tuesday to say by 4 p.m. Wednesday which categories of rejected absentee ballots should be counted. A hearing on narrowing the trial’s scope from a current pool of 4,800 contested ballots is set for Thursday at 1 p.m.
The rivals for Minnesota’s vacant seat in the U.S. Senate must tell the three-judge panel whether they want ballots in these categories counted:
1. Returned by non-registered voter in an absentee ballot return envelope on which no box in the proof of residence portion of the envelope is checked by the witness. 2. Continue Reading
It worked for Rep. Michele Bachmann. In 2006, the Stillwater Republican told worshipers at her church that “Twenty-two months ago, [God] called me to run for United States Congress.” She was elected — and then re-elected. On Friday, former Sen. Norm Coleman made similar statements about his own calling to be back in the Senate. [For recount news, see Unless Franken gets temporary certificate, Senate seat could stay empty 5 months and Sweethearts’ murmurs give way to spat over who made senate trial so boring ]
Coleman, who is Jewish, told nationally syndicated conservative radio host Mike Gallagher that he knows “God wants me to serve,” according to Smart Politics. But for local, presumably more centrist audiences, he gave a godless version the same day. Continue Reading
Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak kicked off his campaign for reelection Saturday morning, and along with 150 supporters, discussed his plans to improve safety, opportunity, education and infrastructure in the city.But his best-known opponent in the mayoral run, DFLer Bob Miller, director of the Neighborhood Revitalization Program, has some different ideas about how the city should be run, including decentralizing the power in the mayor’s office.Looking for a changeMiller has been Director of the NRP since 1992 , a program that gathers residents to create goals and strategies to improve Minneapolis’ neighborhoods.As director of NRP for 16 years, Miller is the longest-serving department head in Minneapolis city government. Under his direction, the program has received several national awards.Miller has been an outspoken critic of the city’s new direction with the program, which will eliminate the current NRP body and replace it with a department that answers to the city coordinator.“It’s an expenditure that I don’t think is going to be productive,” he said. “I would look at providing resources to residents for investment in their neighborhood…it’s going to build participation and hope in the neighborhoods and commitment to stay in the city.”The way the city manages its funds is the biggest issue with the budget crisis, Miller said.He said he wouldn’t use the entire Legacy Fund, the city’s internal $40 million endowment, to support infrastructure projects, which Rybak has proposed to do.“I think they should be retaining those dollars to help with the shortfall,” he said. “I’ve managed millions and millions of dollars in resources and done it pretty well.”Miller said he thinks there is too much power in the mayor’s office, and would like to see more power given back to the residents of Minneapolis.He also wants to increase the amount of jobs and companies coming into the city, address the housing situation and establish pre-kindergarten education for children.Miller said he would consolidate several city and county functions to save money, a move he also thinks would improve some functions.Doug Walter, associate director of the Nakomis East Neighborhood Association , said Miller has a “tremendous” understanding of the entire city after working with NRP for 16 years.“I personally don’t think our current mayor has a lot of depth,” Walter said. “He is a great cheerleader for the city, but I don’t think he has the skill set needed to manage a city of this size.”Moving forwardRybak, who took office in 2002, said he’s been through a lot with the city. Continue Reading
David Schultz Without a new state law requiring a provisional election certificate in cases like Al Franken’s, Minnesota could be without its second U.S. senator for four to five months. That’s the opinion of Hamline University School of Law professor David Schultz, who advised state Rep. Phyllis Kahn on her bill that would seat Franken temporarily until former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s current election contest trial is resolved. In Schultz’s estimation, including time for appeals, the trial in Coleman’s lawsuit might last through June. “Do we want Minnesota to only have one U.S. senator [until then]?” Schultz said in an interview. That is a compelling reason for Gov. Tim Pawlenty to sign the bill, he said. Continue Reading
A window opened this morning — and may not quite have closed again completely — on the promise of a speedier resolution to Minnesota’s senate-seat dispute. But first it was a retiree-age version of the Newlywed Game. Valentine’s Day seemed to have come early as Week 3 began in the election contest trial between Al Franken and Norm Coleman. The former senator’s lawyers started Monday by calling to the stand two husband-and-wife pairs of absentee voters whose ballots had been rejected for improper witnessing. The trial momentarily took a turn for the domestic with he-signed-she-signed testimony that seemed to soften even the lawyers on the Franken side, who let the couples off with only light cross-examination. Continue Reading
Norm Coleman’s campaign received a boost Tuesday when the three-judge panel hearing his election contest ruled that 4,800 rejected absentee ballots will be considered for inclusion. Coleman’s lawyers had argued that all 11,000 rejected absentee ballots should be reconsidered, while Al Franken’s camp had lobbied for limiting the field to less than 700 such ballots. But the mere fact that this many ballots are still in the mix doesn’t necessarily bode well for Coleman’s prospects of closing the 225 vote lead that Franken currently holds. Numbers guru Nate Silver offers an entertaining explanation at FiveThirtyEight for why the 4,800 ballots might not be that significant:
Don’t be impressed, in other words, by the sheer number of ballots under review. If you ask a girl out, and she turns you down the first three times, you don’t really improve your odds of success by asking her out another 30 times. Continue Reading
Day Three: Gelbmann’s grilling by hotshot Friedberg ends after four hours in Senate trialAfter taking a folksy turn Tuesday with testimony from frustrated voters, Norm Coleman’s legal team began to deliver on the tedium it promised in the trial sparked by Coleman’s election-contest lawsuit. The folksy quotient remained high, however, as storied trial attorney Joe Friedberg charmingly dragged his mild but unrelenting grilling of Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann — whom some wags have likened to the sheriff’s duck-painting husband in the movie “Fargo” — into a fourth hour this morning. It turned adversarial only by the end of Friedberg’s questions at 11:25 a.m.
Friedberg chivalrously escorted Gelbmann through a seemingly interminable series of absentee ballots that were rejected for various reasons in the Nov. 4 election pitting the incumbent Republican Sen. Coleman against Democratic challenger Al Franken. Gelbmann, whom the secretary of state’s office offered up as a witness at the Coleman camp’s request, nimbly recollected individual ballots from around the state like old pals. Continue Reading
