The closing arguments in the Minnesota election trial are now over, bringing the proceedings in this trial itself to an end. We now await the ruling from the court, and any subsequent appeals that might occur.
First up, let’s take a look at Franken lawyer Kevin Hamilton’s closing. Hamilton began by rebutting the various claims of Team Coleman, starting with the allegation of errors in the election. “No election is perfect,” said Hamilton. “No election has ever been perfect. No election ever will be perfect. That’s how our democracy works — it relies on citizens, it relies on volunteers.”
However, Hamilton said Coleman has failed to meet his burden of demonstrating that the errors not only occurred, but that they made a difference in the result, but has only spent his time deriding the integrity of the state’s electoral system: “To disappointed candidates who would seek to tear down the system in an attempt to overturn results they wish were different, I would say: Prove it.”
Hamilton then went over the three major claims from the Coleman camp, one by one, then proceeded to two counter-claims from the Franken side.
Rejected Absentees
On the subject of absentee ballots that Team Coleman says were rejected improperly, Hamilton pointed to the spreadsheet submitted by the Coleman camp, laying out the evidence — or the lack thereof, with many blank cells throughout. Hamilton also said it’s important to look at the legend explaining what the letter codes mean: “Reg” means the voter wasn’t registered; “FPCA” means there wasn’t a Federal Post Card Application found; “SVRS” means the voter isn’t currently in the Statewide Voter Registration System, though the Coleman camp thinks the SVRS is wrong and incomplete on this point.
“Again, this is not our spreadsheet, this is contestant’s spreadsheet,” said Hamilton. In all, Hamilton counted only six ballots with completed evidence.
Double-Counting
Hamilton then addressed the allegations of double-counted votes, based on human errors in the process of labeling duplicate copies of damaged absentee ballots. He pointed out that Coleman’s claim has shrank from two-dozen precincts to only 10 heavily pro-Franken precincts, and even for most of those they didn’t submit testimony to show the circumstances of those precincts, to show it wasn’t other clerical errors that can create the mathematical discrepancies.
And he made sure to talk about Pam Howell, the sole election worker brought to testify about the circumstances in her precinct — and who was shown to be a Republican who actively sought out Coleman’s lawyers, refused to speak to Team Franken, and was kept concealed from them so that she wouldn’t be nailed down to a piece of testimony.
And Hamilton reminded the court how the process for handling duplicates, known as Rule 9, was formulated and approved by both campaigns. “Contestant’s attempt to back out of their agreement, both here and before the state canvassing board, is as cynical as it is groundless,” he said, adding: “Contestants are estopped from backing out of it. They have waived any claim.”
The Missing Ballots
On the third Coleman claim — that the state canvassing board should not have gone to the Election Night totals for a deep-blue precinct that lost an envelope full of ballots — this was fairly straightforward. Hamilton pointed out that the Coleman camp has now stipulated that the ballots did indeed exist, and the court has cited case law showing that using the Election Night totals is the proper course.
The Counter-Claims
“We frankly don’t have a lot to challenge,” Hamilton said, pinning down only “a few isolated errors.” He said the campaign has proven other cases of missing ballots — albeit much less dramatic than the example in Minneapolis — and said that in total Al Franken ought to gain a net 52 votes. And he showed the campaign’s own spreadsheet of absentee voters, arguing that they have submitted full and complete evidence to get 252 voters in — and that’s in addition to the nearly 50 voters from Franken’s list that the court has already granted permission to have counted later on.
The Conclusion
Hamilton concluded by saying that the evidence shows Al Franken won the most votes: “Al Franken is Minnesota’s Senator-elect. He is entitled to the certificate of election. Contestee respectfully submits that judgement should be entered rejecting the election contest in its entirety, and granting judgment to Al Franken on his counterclaims.”
