Norm Coleman’s legal team called a half-dozen voters to the witness stand on the second day of the Minnesota trial that may decide who gains the seat Coleman formerly held in the U.S. Senate.

The voters’ testimony occupied the first part of the afternoon in court Tuesday after a morning in which the action was entirely behind the scenes, as three election contest trial judges met in chambers with attorneys from the Coleman and Al Franken campaigns. And their personal tales of electoral woe went a ways toward refreshing the palate after a disastrous Monday in which the judges rejected Coleman’s photocopied evidence.

Three elderly men, two younger men and one woman told three judges that their votes in the Nov. 4, 2008, election didn’t count because local officials determined that absentee ballot and registration signatures didn’t match. All said the Republican Party had contacted them with news that their votes hadn’t been counted, though not all had confirmed that information with officials.

Eugene Markman of Waite Park, Minn., said he voted by absentee ballot so that he could spend 16 hours as chief election judge at a precinct in his former home town of St. Cloud. Coleman attorney Jim Langdon asked Markman to read aloud the reason (signature mismatch) another local official noted for rejecting his ballot.

“Whoever wrote this don’t know how to write either,” Markman said with disgust.

Douglas Thompson told the judges his signatures didn’t match because his girlfriend was responsible for one of them.

Coleman attorney Ben Ginsburg, a veteran of Bush v. Gore presidential recount case in 2000, told reporters at the end of the day that putting voters on the stand was the court’s idea. “The judges suggested to counsel that it would be very helpful to hear from some real people in real situations,” he said.

Ginsburg also cited the day’s last witness called by Coleman’s side, Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann, who had testified that “matching of signatures is the one area where there is a level of discretion allowed by the local officials.” Such variation by locality, Ginsburg insisted, “is a perfect illustration of what we need to correct in this process.” To sum up the problem, Ginsburg again pointed to another statement by Gelbmann: “Every ballot has its own story.”

But that same phrase was also a keynote in Franken attorney Marc Elias’ arguments presented to the press after court adjourned for the day. In Elias’ telling, Gelbmann’s saying means that decisions made by local officials in the original canvass and again in the statewide recount should stand: They have already elicited each ballot’s story.

Elias expressed one frustration with a metaphor (trying “to chase this rabbit around a hole”) that another Franken attorney, Kevin Hamilton, had called “a constant game of shuffling the deck” in a strenuous objection before the court. The problem they allege: Coleman’s team continuously changes the so-called “universe” of rejected ballots they want the three judges to review. The day’s presiding judge on the panel, Denise Reilly of Hennepin County District Court, said the court would take the objection under advisement.

But such procedural moves weren’t what Coleman, who (unlike Franken) was again present for the trial today, wanted to talk to reporters about afterward. “Today we saw the human side of this,” he said. “It’s heartwarming to be here and to hear Minnesotans come forward and be so passionate about having their votes counted.”

That passion was on display with Coleman’s first witness, Gerald W. Anderson of St. Paul, who said he is blind and cast his first vote for Eisenhower in 1952. As for the vote Republicans told him was rejected, he protested loudly: “I want it back! I’m entitled to my vote!”

In anticipation of the trial, Norm Coleman’s camp issued a video alleging that the Democrats are seeking to disenfranchise voters. The former senator also hired media consultant Gail Gitcho to help spin the national press, according to The Washington Post.

Marc Elias, lead recount attorney for Franken, presented his own spin to reporters on a conference call this morning.

“Though they claim that their lawsuit to overturn the election results is about counting every vote, the truth is that they are seeking to disenfranchise Minnesota voters left and right, which has been their pattern throughout this effort,” Elias said.

The Democratic attorney was particularly worked up on today’s call, repeatedly referring to the Coleman camp as the “flat-earth society.”

Of course all the spin is irrelevant. The only votes that matter now are those of the three district court judges on the panel: Elizabeth Hayden, Kurt Marben and Denise Reilly.

Watch day one of the trial here at 1 pm CST.

Hayden, an appointee of former Gov. Rudy Perpich (DFL) is from Stearns County in the state’s Seventh Judicial District. Marben, of Pennington County, was appointed by former Gov. Jesse Venutura (Independence Party). Reilly is a Hennepin County judge in the Fourth District and an appointee of then-Republican Gov. Arne Carlson — who in his current incarnation as an independent has said that Coleman should concede.