Earlier this afternoon the special three-judge panel in the Minnesota election contest dealt Norm Coleman a defeat, denying his campaign’s motion to authorize a full inspection of ballots and voter rolls that would have delayed the start of the trial on Monday.
Had the court granted the request, it would have helped the Coleman team’s efforts to look around the state to find ballots for himself or to have ballots for Franken thrown out. If the Coleman team was celebrating yesterday’s denial of Franken’s effort to dismiss the whole case, this ruling shows that things won’t be so smooth for them, either.
This excerpt from their opinion could give us a good idea of the logic the new court will use going forward: “The Court determined that it has jurisdiction over this matter in its Order Denying Contestee’s Motion to Dismiss. Contestants, however, have not met their burden of showing that an inspection is needed to prepare for trial.”
Translation: We might have found that Franken didn’t meet the burden of proof necessary to throw out Coleman’s arguments, but in this example Coleman hasn’t met the burden necessary to win them.
