Comments on: Coleman can’t win for losing: Peek at crib sheets gets witness’ testimony stricken

By: Richard Massey

Richard Massey — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 05:05:25 +0000

Just exactly how much Courtroom chicanery are the trio of Judges going to allow before they come-down hard on what the Coleman Team has been pulling-off in their Courtroom? I’d like to see them become just angry enough with the “phony-baloney witnesses” and the “bought and paid for” testimony and the flagrant violations of Law committed by the Coleman Team to start handing-down some fines, penalties, sanctions and more.
The Coleman Team has conducted business in an arrogant and self-righteous manner right out of the gate. They have done, requested or attempted to do otherwise than what the Supreme Court has already ruled upon; earning them Sanctions from this Court which now finds them in nothing short of withholding evidence, witness tampering, collusion and Contempt of Court.
Team Coleman and Coleman, himself, keep harping about wanting Minnesota to have another Election. There will be another Election, … in 2012! But, after trying to lie and cheat your way through this Contest; I doubt you get enough signatures on your paperwork petition unless you count each one of them, … twice!

By: Eric Ferguson

Eric Ferguson — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:28:55 +0000

Maybe the court had the same thought I did, since it reversed itself under grounds that Franken now has had time to examine the document and plan cross-examination. This is a crucial witness for Coleman, because if all Coleman has are numbers, other explanations are possible, and he needs to show the double-counting theory is more likely than not.

Of course, it Coleman can prove it, then Franken gets to show numerical discrepancies in Coleman precincts. Considering how evidence of counties varying in how tightly they followed procedures indicates Franken was the candidate who got hurt, double-counting might have helped Coleman.

By: Chris Steller

Chris Steller — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:00:46 +0000

Robert Hunter, thanks for your comment. I’ll change the way I phrased the line about her testimony. I was relying on the AP story that’s linked in the post which described her as “the only witness to claim seeing errors that may have given some people two votes” — which is slightly different than what I wrote. I missed seeing most of her actual testimony yesterday though The UpTake has it archived (labeled parts 1 and 2 from yesterday, I believe).

By: Robert Hunter

Robert Hunter — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:19:11 +0000

According to the Star Tribune all that the witness testified to was thatshe heard another say duplicate ballots were not marked and numbered as duplicates before they were put into the ballot counter.
In this case, it seems rather easy to see if the total number of ballots counted agrees with the number of voters participating in the election. This would tell you if some ballots were counted twice.

By: Eric Ferguson

Eric Ferguson — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:23:18 +0000

I bet Coleman uses the exclusion of that witness as part of an appeal.