A funny thing has happened in the Minnesota election trial today — they’re actually making real progress!
After the judges handed down key rulings over the past week that finally established real rules — they had heard enough from prior witnesses to rule what kinds of ballots would be admitted, and what standards to apply for any new pleas — the campaigns are very quickly going through the motions with the election officials who do come through.
So far today they have fully examined — that is, the witness is sworn in, direct-examined, cross-examined, re-direct-examined and excused — election officials from several different counties, plus four municipalities in Hennepin County (Minneapolis) where the cities run elections. They also finished up an interview of another county official, which had begun yesterday afternoon.
Judge Denise Reilly even thanked and congratulated the parties for getting through “nine and a half” officials.
Who knows, at the rate they’re now going they might actually be done by 2012.
Meanwhile, Coleman spokesman/lawyer Ben Ginsberg is now playing up the Coleman campaign’s case that the current vote totals cannot stand.
Ginsberg explained that we’ve seen counties allowing in absentee ballots that had flaws in them according to the strict letter of the law. And since the court is now applying the strict letter of the law in letting in any new ballots, this creates a situation “so that illegal votes are included in the current counts that the court will have to certify as accurate, a direct contradiction between its February 13th order and what’s in the actual ballots.”
“There are more illegal votes in the current count than Al Franken’s erstwhile lead,” Ginsberg later added — setting this whole thing up for an appeal to higher courts, the Supreme Court, the United States Senate, and the Guardians of the Universe.
In response to a reporter’s question about the difficulties in calculating votes here, Ginsberg also pointed to how other people have discussed how no certain result is available in an election this narrow — the sort of thing we’d expect to hear from a campaign that might seek a do-over election as one contingency plan — citing a recent piece in the Pioneer Press: “That notion is there in the water, but we’re not putting it there.”
Another thing: He repeatedly referred to last week’s ruling as the “Friday the 13th Ruling,” as if a large murderer in a hockey mask is now writing Minnesota’s case law.
(Ginsberg presser via The Uptake)
