Breaking news: Court rules for Franken in Senate ballot case; more on Monday

February 13, 5:10 PMPolitical Issues ExaminerJudah Freed

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A three-judge Minnesota court this afternoon has rejected 13 to 17 of the 19 categories of absentee ballots at the center of the case brought by Republic Norm Coleman in his attempt to erase a narrow vote margin favoring Democrat Al Franken in the U.S. Senate race.

Al Franken (AP File Photo)

Democrats hope Franken will prevail in the race to move them closer to the 60-seat threshold needed in the Senate to stop the Republican filibusters that for years have thwarted Democrats from enacting their agenda.

The core of the dispute is that Democrat Al Franken's legal team wants the state of Minnesota to count every absentee ballot legally cast by registered voters. In contrast, Republican Norm Coleman's legal team has wanted the state to count almost every absentee ballot, including those with legal problems, such as faulty voter registrations or improper signatures.

Saying election law cannot make exceptions on what ballots can legally be counted, the court today wholly rejected counting 13 categories of faulty ballots, and another four categories of ballot are likely to be rejected by Monday on the  same grounds.

In a hastily arranged telephone press conference Friday evening, Franken attorney Marc Elias said the courts has ruled that the only ballots to be counted are those that meet the exact letter of the law

Elias was unwilling to speculate how many of the "universe of 4800 absentee ballots" submitted by Coleman are being eliminated from contention. Franken has asked for an additional 800 absentee ballots to be counted.

Franken now leads by about 250 votes, so Coleman must hope more than enough votes for him reside in the two remaining categories of absentee ballots that the court likely will decide can be counted.

These hundred of contested absentee ballots are all that remain uncounted out of the 2.9 million federal ballots cast last November in Minnesota.

NOTE: The trial resumes next Monday morning at 9 AM CT, and I will make the live feed available here, as I've done for the past two days. Meanwhile, I invite you to read the case analysis by South St. Paul Examiner Rob Shirk. You also might appreciate Brad Friedman's take on the case at The BradBlog.com.

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