heh... Franken must figure he's got this thing sewed up. He was only willing to reimburse a Duluth city clerk $105 for his travel, meals, and work time lost to testify for him last Thu (It's ~150 mi one way from Duluth to Minneapolis, BTW - in the dead of winter to boot...)

We can only hope ol' Al will continue to practice such careful parsimony if/when he gets to Washington.

Here's my Saturday song dedication to Minnesota. You guys need to kick Coleman's ass out and get it overwith, tho:

where he will successfully lobby Lawmakers about giving Israel anything it wants, putting human rights second. This is my song dedication.

They only "win" by cheating.

Punks. Pussies. Prey.

"Two Princes?" I think I hear 1995 calling...

Carla, I enjoy your writing, but I'm going to call a blown reference here. I mean you bring up "Two Princes" in a story about Minnesota and neither one is His Royal Badness, Prince himself? Where's the respect?

I see how the "Spin Doctors" thing fits in a political story, but I don't get how you can view Norm Coleman as the prince of anything. He's an idiot.

Finally, the lyrics of the song may suggest this long Senate race, but why not go with the real Prince of Minnesota, who was prescient enough to write, "Honey I know, I know, I know times are changing It's time we all reach out 4 something new That means u 2 U say u want a leader But u can't seem 2 make up your mind I think u better close it And let me guide u 2 the purple rain."

Other than that, I enjoyed the article.

Glad to see that BlueOregon is still paying attention to our little contest. Sadly, the trial has been buried inside the second section of the two major Twin Cities newspapers and is barely mentioned on the nightly television news.

Yes, if the Franken was behind and used a legal challenge to delay Coleman from serving in the Senate, there would be a loud and consistent outcry from the GOP. What we have here is a sore loser who has brought in a gaggle of lawyers to game the counting methods in order to produce a favorable result. As long as he keeps getting donations, Coleman will continue to proceed.

Going into the court challenge, Franken held a 225 vote lead with has actually expanded slightly based on other court cases.

Coleman is offering a three-prong argument. Coleman claims that more than 100 votes were counted twice after copies of damaged ballots were fed into tabulating machines. This is what Pamela Howell was to address. This did happen but there are a multiple explainations for this that do not suggest fraud. Coleman has not defined which precincts he is questioning nor called any election workers that were involved in the process, but his early pleadings indicated that some princints may have a high of seven and a low of one. The problem is that it is unknown if the double-counted ballot was a vote for Franken, Coleman or one of the other candidates.
Coleman also has a legitimate complaint concerning 132 ballots that disappeared between the election night machine count and the recount. Franken netted 46 votes. This is Coleman’s strongest challenge. Between these two catagories, Coleman cannot get enough votes to overcome Franken. Thus, the only hope that Coleman has is in the third area which is the acceptance or rejection of absentee ballots. There were over 280,000 absentee ballots requested and roughly 2% rejected. Minnesota’s absentee ballot laws are very strict (as well as cumbersome.) The current argument that Coleman's team is trying is based on Equal Protection Clause. It doesn't stand up in my view. They argue that some counties were stricter in adhering to the absentee ballot procedures while other counties were lax. That may be true, but the rules were consistently followed in each county ... potentially both candidates gained or lost the same as both Coleman and Franken votes faced the same degree of legal threshold. This means the sum of all counties will produce a vote breakdown influenced by one chief factor, the actual proportion of voters in those counties supporting one candidate or another. Their focus is on one county where potentially up to 83 ballots were rejected due to witness problems. [It should be noted that although these ballots were rejected, it is unknown if the voter didn't correct the problem and subsequentially did vote ... that has already been proven in other examples.] The problem is that even if all 83 votes had gone for Coleman, he still does not reach the threshold required to surpass Franken. If anything this would not be an Equal Protection problem since Minnesota laws treat the use of absentee ballots as a privilege (yes, it’s a right to vote, but it’s a privilege to vote absentee). There has not been any claim of a “class” of citizens that were denied the privilege of voting via absentee, but instead it is the voter who did not adhere to the rules.

What Coleman wants is an activist court that writes it's own rules ...not follow the existing laws and past court rulings.

So in the end, Coleman may have some additional ballots counted, but Franken hasn’t started his case and he has between 800 and 1600 that he wants added. The numbers don’t add up for Coleman. In a month, the Appellate Court should rule and then it’s on to the appeal process to the MN Supreme Court and possible challenges in federal court.

The only number that matters to the GOP is 60. Everyday that Franken is not in the Senate voting on health care and tax legislation is another day that the GOP controls the agenda. So, my guess is that the GOP will fund Coleman’s battle until the federal appeals are complete.

So, Minnesota Central----you said that the case isn't getting much play in the papers up there....how does the general public feel about the case? Are their groups organized on both sides of the issue? What, if anything, is the state Dem party doing to support Franken in this? What can they do?

I was thinking if this was in Oregon and we didn't have representation in Congress that people would be raising a huge stink about it---not that it would do much good, but they'd still be yelling their heads off. Is that happening in MN?

Thanks for the first-had accounts on what's happening up there!

Thanks for reading my comment.

If you are asking, “Even if the media is not covering the trial, is the public engaged”, then the answer is “probably – No”.

First thing to remember is that Franken and Coleman each got only 42% of the vote. The third party candidate received roughly 350,000 More votes than the typical third party candidates get in a Senate race. Overall, Franken and Coleman were considered to be flawed candidate. Typically it is the partisan activists that care the most, but with these two candidates, there was serious disappointment even from party activists. Coleman ran his campaign trying by appealing to moderate independent voters under the campaign “Minnesota’s Mayor in Washington” … promoting his earmarks and that he would work across the aisle. That didn’t appease the core conservatives … and at the MN-GOP convention there was notable silence during his speech especially when he addressed climate change and immigration issues (plus being opposed to drilling in ANWR). After the convention, there was open discussion to “throw Coleman under the bus.” Franken did not have an easy time as the MN-GOP successfully advertized his Playboy article making many women oppose him … including more than a few elected Democrats.

Now that doesn’t mean that the voters aren’t willing to accept whomever gets the seat. The MN-GOP has been pushing the message that it is a flawed election so their supporters don’t see it as Coleman’s failure but that Franken and his cronies stole the election. The fact that the State Canvassing Board, which was dominated by Republican appointees, declared Franken the winner is irrelevent in their view. That will probably hold true if the Appellate Court (and MN Supreme Court) rules against Coleman. What has been amazing is that the SCB and Court rulings thus far have been unanimous. The Dems have reacted to the MN-GOP pr campaign, but have not been pro-active in pushing for Coleman to terminate his legal challenge – obviously, they realize that if Coleman were to win, then they would appeal to the MN-Supreme Court and thus would receive the same criticism.

From the blogger perspective, the most prominent Minnesota Conservative site – Powerline (which is known for discrediting the Dan Rather TX National Guard Bush story) has been remarkably silent since the trial began. They have complained that Coleman’s legal team has done a poor job (true) and even questioning Coleman counsel Ben Ginsberg’s argument regarding Equal Protection.

The trial is still weeks away from conclusion, so to the general public, it is probably not a key news story. Yes, many citizens want their second Senator, but Minnesota is not that much different than other states when a Senator is not there (consider Tim Johnson’s extended illness, and now Ted Kennedy … or last year when McCain, Obama, Clinton, et al were not there for various votes.) Thus far Klobuchar’s staff have been able to handle the day-to-day constiuents problems.

Franken has filed a suit requesting the issuance of an election certificate based on the SCB decision. The MN-Supreme Court (Case A09-0064) heard arguments on February 5th, but have not ruled. Why they are waiting is unknown – a month is a long time to decide a simple case – most observers believe that the law is clear and that Franken should lose … and IF Coleman wins, his arguments against seating Franken would be used against him while Franken appeals.

Minnesota will not get a second Senator until the Appellate Court rules … and then whether the loser appeals to the MN-Supreme Court. Once the MN-SC rules, the certificate should be issued, but Republican Governor Pawlenty has indicated that he may not sign the certificate if Coleman appeals to the Federal Courts. Pawlenty would get criticized by Minnesotans but praised by the GOP.

In most instances after Minnesota court ruling (and Federal court), the election is over but in this instance Coleman still has one more appeal. Coleman is arguing that the absentee ballot procedures allowed in more than enough illegal votes that the results cannot be accepted. The courts will rule, but ultimately, the decision of whom to seat could rest with the Senate. Coleman could appeal to the Senate and work the filibuster system to prevent Franken from being seated. In the end the Senate could allow the state of Minnesota to hold another election (which is what Coleman’s team is now advocating) … if so, considering how Coleman got to get the re-veto, I would think the majority of 430,000 dissatisfied Independent voters would embrace Franken.

Check back with us in July and will give you an update.

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