Photo via The UpTake

Photo via The UpTake

Testimony from a witness for Norm Coleman was stricken from the court record today when the three judges in Minnesota’s election contest trial agreed with Al Franken’s side that Coleman lawyers should not have shared notes with her during a break. As seen and reported on The UpTake, it was a dramatic blow for Coleman’s effort to upend his Democratic opponent’s 225-vote recount victory in the fight for Coleman’s old U.S. Senate seat, especially for a team still smarting from other smackdowns Tuesday.

UPDATE: The judges changed their minds and un-struck the testimony (pdf). (They all three signed the order  – does that make three un-strikes?)

Minneapolis election worker Pamela Howell, a Republican, was on the witness stand today to attest to polling place errors that could have led to double-counting of votes. She was under cross-examination by the Franken side when the court adjourned for a short break — during which Coleman attorney Joe Friedberg gave her notes she’d prepared earlier.

When court resumed, Franken attorney David Lillehaug  first demanded to know what the document was and the reason it hadn’t been shared with his team — and then demanded that the court strike Howell’s testimony from the record.

Coleman attorney Tony Trimble’s explanation of the incident as a simple mistake didn’t satisfy the judges. Instead, they had Howell leave the stand having left not an official ripple on the proceedings — though her brief appearance had crashed like an unwelcome wave across the former Republican senator’s deck.

In other court action today, Coleman attorneys argued that a St. Louis County absentee ballot envelope rife with X marks where voter information belonged should not have been counted. The two sides clashed over whether Coleman could solicit evidence from far-flung counties via e-mail. And Cindy Reichert, the Minneapolis elections manager, took the stand later in the day to be quizzed about 133 ballots that went from the city’s Ward 3, Precinct 3. She also said some absentee ballots that may contain registration forms inside remain unopened. Her testimony resumes Thursday.

On Tuesday, Coleman continued to lose ground in his effort to have some ballots counted and others not. And at the end of the day, the court issued an order (pdf) rejecting his request for an injunction to stop state officials from blotting out marks linking 933 ballots tallied in the recount, some of which Coleman now contends aren’t legal.

The interminable quality of the back-and-forth legal battle, now in its fifth week, isn’t lost on the combatants closest to the conflict. An end-of-day interview by The UpTake’s Noah Kunin with East Coast-based Franken attorney Marc Elias included this exchange, after Coleman attorney Joel Friedberg, a Minnesotan, passed the pair in a courthouse corridor:

KUNIN (relaying a question from Elias’ wife, who Elias has said is following the trial via The UpTake “religiously”): When are you coming home, or is that too speculative?

ELIAS: You should have asked Mr. Friedberg. (Turning to shout down the hall) When am I going home?

FRIEDBERG (in an off-mike remark, as relayed by Kunin): The sooner, the better.