A few more points from the Minnesota trial today, besides the huge mess involving breached donor data from the Coleman campaign:
⢠After Franken lawyer Kevin Hamilton announced that the campaign was postponing the resting of their case, from today to some time tomorrow, lead Coleman attorney Joe Friedberg asked for another day to begin his rebuttal. The judges said no, they expect a rebuttal to begin tomorrow, as well.
⢠The Coleman lawyers have served subpoenas to local officials, seeking more evidence on voters who were among the 3-A ballots, to be presented during their rebuttal. The Franken camp moved to quash the subpoenas, and argued a motion in limine to prevent such evidence from being admitted on the grounds that Team Coleman has rested their case, and previously gave no indication that they wanted to leave the case open in this respect. A judgment from the court is still pending.
⢠At his post-court press conference, lead Franken attorney Marc Elias argued that the Coleman camp’s new spreadsheet of 1,360 is riddled with missing evidence — and in some cases they argue that the state voter database will eventually have the information they need, rather than actively seeking to prove their case. “My spreadsheet had them at nine,” Elias said. “Their spreadsheet has them at zero. So they may want to reconsider whether they agree with my spreadsheet.”
⢠Coleman legal spokesman Ben Ginsberg insisted that they have proven these voters — more than enough to re-elect Norm Coleman — under the court’s standards. But he also implied that a lenient standard will be required: “We think that under Minnesota law as it was practiced in all 87 counties on Election Day, we absolutely have proved the case that all those votes should be counted.” What this likely means is that many of these ballots will be rejected, and are being saved for an appeal — in fact, Ginsberg complained of inconsistent standards in decisions to let rejected Franken-voters in.
⢠The court just handed down an opinion on Coleman’s attempt to submit certified forms from the counties — either a copy of a document, or a certification that no document such as an absentee-voter application was found after a diligent search — and Franken’s attempts to stop it. The court accepted some of them, granted an extension of five days to receive an official seal on others, threw out statements from Anoka County as going too far, and also threw out some others as having been submitted too late last week.
(Coleman presser c/o The Uptake.)
