The Franken campaign just held a conference call to discuss the real milestone event today in the Senate trial: The Coleman campaign has rested their case, putting the ball in Franken’s court.
Lead Franken lawyer Marc Elias said the Franken camp will conduct their case in a different manner from Coleman, who went for five weeks and mostly called local election officials.
“I think what you’re likely to see out of us, starting tomorrow, is a case that will move more briskly,” said Elias. “We’ll move in a very targeted fashion towards bringing before the court evidence regarding the voters who we believe should have their votes counted.”
For example, Elias said they’ll be calling 15-20 voters tomorrow, compared to 21 total rejected voters that Coleman brought in, as well as bringing local officials to address individual ballots — and to discuss how the system got it right, that the election officials at all levels did their jobs properly by and large, “and this is an election that the people of Minnesota can and should be proud of, and feel was conducted fairly.”
Elias predicted Team Franken will go for two to three weeks, though he did caution that he can’t say exactly how long it will go.
Elias also said they will be filing a motion later this week to dismiss some of Coleman’s claims, though he did not go into further detail — in other words, let’s wait for the actual filing and courtroom arguments.
Elias was asked by a reporter about the latest rumblings from the Coleman campaign that suggest they’ll be calling for a new election — and he didn’t seem to be buying it as a plausible scenario: “Well I don’t have an opinion on what their strategy is because they — they seem to simultaneously claim that they’re going to win the recount and also suggest things such as you suggest.”
