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As we all know by now, Norm Coleman finally did file the appeal he’d been promising since at least a week before the Election Contest Court judges handed down their ruling last week. So we waited nearly a week for this? Bah.
On the other hand, the post-filing press conference of Ben Ginsberg’s was a scream, even as measured by his past entertainments. Our favorite Pro Hack Non Vice and seasoned veteran of the 2000 Brooks Brothers Riot in Florida transmitted his oratorical pearls to us from a "secret and undisclosed" location. (The whole idea that the Minnesota Supreme Court is going to be nicer to Coleman than was the ECC is ludicrous. They’re not going to overturn decades of settled law for a really flimsy-assed argument.)
The Minnesota Supreme Court normally takes six to eight months to see oral arguments, but they will be setting everything else aside for this case. Judging from how fast they moved in December, they could set the oral arguments to start in as little as two weeks. (This assumes that the court does allow oral arguments, which they might not. However, they almost certainly will.) Franken attorney Marc Elias is going to be filing a motion to expedite with the Minnesota Supremes sometime today; that could speed things up even more.
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You are f***ing kidding me.
It took them seven days to come up with THAT? A competent paralegal (much less a lawyer) should have been able to knock that out in half an hour.
If this is ‘getting it right,’ these guys are just hopeless.
Now why do we suppose Ginsberg was on the phone only, and not in front of cameras? I’m going to hazard it’s because he’s no longer in Minnesota, having moved on to the next election to steal (any sign of him sniffing around Tedisco in NY?).
This appeal seems more of a going-through-the-motions exercise (pun intended), with Norm doing his recent “I just care so deeply about these constitutional issues” career rehab press junket. I don’t expect an appeal beyond the MN Supreme Court, but Norm’s fooling himself if he thinks he has a political future in this state.
Seems Normie isn’t running out the clock. that’s something you do when you are winning.
No, Normie took a time out, then threw the ball out of bounds to stop the clock again. Pretty obvious that the name of the game is to make the game last longer in real time and keep Franken from claiming his rightful seat.
I’ll be glad when I no longer have to read the words Norm Coleman in the campaign silo. But thanks for all the updates PW. what a slog, but somebody has to do it! ;]
I’m a little thick sometimes, but I thought the notice of appeal needed to include the general grounds of the appeal, not just “we are appealing this ruling.” Did I misunderstand the relevant MN law?
They’re allowed to do the appeal in separate documents. The Coleman folks have posted the five-page Notice of Appeal, and a seven-page Statement of Case that lays out the grounds for appeal. It’s still pretty thin gruel.
He allegedly was on vacation in Europe, but who knows? He refused to say when asked.
PW,
If that’s thin gruel, then a cup of bullion is a bowl of stew. It’s a lot closer to Gertrude Stein’s description of Oakland (There’s no there, there) than it is to anything of substance.
But the issues Normie’s presenting in the appeal look to be aimed at an order for a do-over election.
Issue
1> Did the trial court err in disallowing evidence of disparate application of absentee ballot standards?
2> The Equal Protection argument. Does the Republic Party really want to go there?
3> More Equal Protection. Can the ECC insist on strict compliance with voting standards when Precinct officers applied a ’substantial compliance’ standard? Again, do you really want to go there?
4> We want the double-counted precincts inspected!
5> We want the missing ballots from Precinct 3-1 excluded!
If the MNSC agrees to hear argument in this case, they’re really being extra-nice to Normie. As far as Points 1- 3 go, 11,000 wrongs don’t make a right. If the erroneously counted absentee ballots could be identified and excluded, that would be one thing. But we have a secret ballot here, Normie. That means that in law, the ruling of the Precinct officials to count an absentee ballot is final. You should have had your Precinct observers primed to challenge every ballot that didn’t meet the strict criteria if that’s what you wanted. Or, to argue for the inclusion of every ballot no matter how fleeting the nod at voting standards was. Pick a standard and stick to it. It would be interesting to check the records of the R – observers. I’ll bet in R – heavy precincts they wanted everything counted, and in D – heavy precincts they wanted strict standards. That would make them party to the human error that created the disparity.
As far as points 4 and 5 go, the ECC ruled (based on the evidence) that there was no double-counting, and no point in revisiting Precinct 3-1.
This appeal needs to make Rachel’s Weak stuff of the Week on Friday.
The only way Normie’s gripes could be fixed is in a do-over election. As far as I know, there isn’t a precedent for that anywhere in the US. Certainly not for any election that substantially without error, like this one was.
I see. It looks like ol’ Normie is arguing that because he was ahead after the initial counting he should be declared the winner and anyway the ECC was unfair in ruling that Normie & his legal team had to abide by the law and it just wouldn’t be fair to stand on precedent unlessthatprecedentfavoredNormiewhichit didn’tandsohereallywoneventhoughhelostsojustdeclarehimthewinner and stuff.
Does that seem about right?
Yeah, that’s about right. Compare that bit of bilge to the extremely-well-crafted motion to expedite from the Franken team. Note that this simple motion to expedite cites more (and more pertinent) statutes that both of Norm’s appeal motions put together.