Fast forward to this week. On Monday, April 13, at exactly 6 p.m., the three-judge panel in the Norm Coleman-Al Franken election-contest trial released its decision that Franken had indeed won election to the U.S. Senate.

Now the spooky part: Precisely 42 minutes after the judges made their decision public, came the official declaration of ice-out on Lake Minnetonka.

Here’s what Klobuchar said two months ago:

My prediction, Rachel, is that we will have a new senator by the time the ice melts on Lake Minnetonka, which that is predicted to be April 11.

She was wrong about April 11 — or rather, whoever’s prediction she cited was wrong. But ice-out day on Lake Minnetonka is hard to predict. Records show it has come as early as March 11 (in 1878) and as late as May 8 (1856).

Now Klobuchar has taken some heat for some unforeseen consequences of a law she authored banning lead in toys. But allowing for a broad interpretation of the phrase “have a new senator,” Klobuchar proved herself spectacularly accurate – off by less than an hour – about the timing of what history likely will show was the moment when Minnesota knew who its next Senator would be.

Much more accurate anyway than any of the predictions by the person in perhpas the best position to make something happen: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose latest failed prognostication about filling Minnesota’s seat passed without incident on April Fool’s Day.

Here’s the video clip from Maddow’s Feb. 16 program. Klobuchar’s prediction comes at the 3:45 mark.

 And here’s Maddow again on April 17, with a segment based on this post (starts at about the 3:00 mark):

And here’s a video clip of Klobuchar on CNN’s “State of the Union with John King” on April 19, (prediction talk starts at the 12:00 mark, transcript excerpt below):

KING: So, Senator Klobuchar, when will this be over? And I assume you’ve told Al Franken that even if he wins in the end, you will still be Minnesota’s funniest senator?

(LAUGHTER)

KLOBUCHAR: Well, all right, first of all, I would say this, and that is that Norm Coleman has a right to pursue his appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court. But Minnesota also has a right to two senators. This has been going on for months now. Since December, our staff, I’m so proud of them, they’ve had double the case work. Everything from veterans benefits cases to people who have lost their Social Security checks to people who are trying to adopt babies in Guatemala that are stalled out.

Minnesota has that right to two senators. I’m hopeful the Minnesota Supreme Court is going to move very quickly on this. The law actually says in Minnesota that they have to set aside their other work.

Now, I had predicted this would be resolved when the ice melted on Lake Minnetonka, John. And the three-judge ruling came out, 42 minutes, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources declared the ice had melted.

Now I predict this will be done when Minnesotans are allowed to swim in our lakes, which is Memorial weekend.

KING: I will have you back in five or six weeks, Memorial Day weekend. I think my math is about right on that. It might be a little more. Amy Klobuchar, John Ensign, senators both, thank you very much for being here today.

(hat tip: MPR’s Polinaut)

Ned Foley, Guy Charles, Rich Hasen

Three election-law experts who have been closely tracking the Norm Coleman-Al Franken contest for U.S. Senate weigh in today with written reactions to the final order (pdf) from the three-judge panel that heard Coleman’s complaint. All admired the order for its unanimity and deft handling of Coleman’s equal-protection claims.

The ruling meets two standards that Ohio State University professor Edward Foley had set for the panel: unanimity and a willingness to grapple with whether local variations in applying state election processes violated Minnesotans’ constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law.

Foley stresses the impartiality of the ruling — as compared to, say, Bush v. Gore in 2000, on which Coleman’s claim of equal-protection violations relied:

There is no doubt … that this three-judge court would have rejected the same Equal Protection claim if raised by Franken rather than Coleman.

Loyola Law School professor Rich Hasen doesn’t use the word “impartial” but he does call the ruling “careful, unanimous,” “reasonable and conservative,” and  ”detailed and measured.”

On equal protection, Hasen writes that the three-judge panel “has it both ways” — calling the issue outside the court’s scope but also rejecting it with “impressive and sensitive handling”:

As I predicted, they rejected a reading of the case that would require the counting of further illegal votes to deal with any illegal votes that had already been cast, and they rejected an argument that any lack of perfection in the casting and counting of votes constitutes a violation of equal protection.

Coleman’s equal protection argument is “not trivial,” writes Guy Charles, a University of Minnesota law professor temporarily teaching at Duke University:

But as judges and legal academics like to say, that argument proves too much … Unfortunately for Coleman, his prospects always depended upon a miracle. He wanted before and wants now more ballots to be counted. But the more ballots that are counted — by election officials, the Canvassing Board and the trial court — the better Al Franken does.

“It’s over,” Charles advises Coleman on his post-election legal battle. “It’s Kumbayah time.”

“I am honored and humbled by this close victory,” Franken announced from his townhouse stoop in downtown Minneapolis.

Asked about the vow from his Republican rival, former Sen. Norm Coleman, to appeal the decision on equal-protection grounds, Franken said, ”I urge him not to … although I’m sure he’s made his mind up.”

In a statement earlier in the day, Coleman pledged to appeal the decision to “a supreme court” — meaning, apparently, Minnesota’s high court, the nation’s, or both.

Coleman’s appeal appears to be the only thing standing between Franken and an election certificate — the ticket to being seated in the U.S. Senate from Minnesota. “I believe I will be certified,” he said.

“Amy Klobuchar is only one senator,” Franken said. “It’s time that Minnesota — like every other state — has two.”

After what he called a “long delay” that had required “so much effort,” Franken said he was “looking forward to getting to work as soon as possible.

“I would love to be certified in 10 days,” he said, referring to the period after which, if Coleman files no petition to the state Supreme Court, the election contest judges’ ruling would stand.

Franken named the coming debate at the U.S. Capitol on health care policy as one in which he’d like to participate. “I want to be there for that,” he said, adding that the country is facing “an unprecedented array of problems, and the sooner I can get to work, the better.”

A reporter asked, will he indeed be traveling to Washington, D.C. soon? Yes, Franken said — but then, he added, that’s not unusual for him lately. He’s made frequent trips there to confer with Democratic leaders and to raise money.

On that point, Franken seemed to misunderstand how much of his own legal expenses this court’s order states that Coleman, who brought the suit, must pay.

One clause does state that the Republican must cover Franken’s and the court’s expenses for three days as a sanction for the Coleman’s side’s legal shenanigans. But another (which could change on appeal) states that Coleman must cover Franken’s costs for the entire lawsuit, which Coleman, after all, initiated.

It’s clear that — to put the political situation in movie terms — the Democrat would like to see the near future play out something like “Mr. Franken Goes to Washington” meets “I Love You, Man.”

But the coming attraction Coleman is ready to reel out promises more conflict on the order of “Monsters vs. Aliens.”

“I also would want to look at what the courts did with the case in terms of leaving issues for potential appeal, the strength of those issues, how directly and effectively they addressed them,” Pawlenty told a Minnesota Public Radio call-in audience today “I’m not saying that I’m going to, or not going to, issue the certificate at that point. I just want to make sure I have all the facts in front of me before I made a decision like that.”

It’s the second time in a week that Pawlenty, a Republican and a trained attorney, said he plans to cast himself in the role of judicial critic once the courts issue final rulings on Coleman’s legal challenge to Franken’s recount win.

On April 8, Pawlenty told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that before he signed an election certificate, he would want to “see what the case would look like at that point, in terms of how harshly or strongly the issues have been decided or dealt with by the Minnesota Supreme Court.”

When Maddow asked whether he’d sign the certificate — which the state Supreme Court has said is his duty once the state courts are through with the case — Pawlenty replied: “It’s premature to say that, based on a number of factors. … We just need more information as to evaluating this case.”

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has promised to provide the second required signature on an election certificate after the state Supreme Court takes action on an expected appeal from the election-contest court. “I assume we are both going to follow the order of the Minnesota Supreme Court” that a certificate should be issued “at the end of the state court process,” Ritchie said.

A decision is expected at any time from the three judges who presided over a seven-week trial of Coleman’s challenge to Franken 225-vote recount win. Last week, Franken’s margin increased to 312 after the judges allowed 351 previously uncounted absentee ballots. An appeal must be filed within 10 days of the election-contest court’s order.

Pawlenty said it could be “June or later” before the state courts complete the Coleman-Franken case.

Pawlenty, who reportedly ran a close second to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for Sen. John McCain’s vice-presidential pick last year, also replied to a question from MPR “Midday” host Gary Eichten today about whether he wants to be president. Pawlenty claimed not to have given it “any serious thought” and also wouldn’t say if he’ll run for a third term in 2010.

Buffalo High School auditorium

Three announcements from Minnesota courts this afternoon: First, there won’t be a ruling today on Norm Coleman’s legal challenge to the Senate-election recount that Al Franken won. Second, however, the three-judge panel now deliberating did throw out a separate voters’ suit in the matter (pdf). Third, there will be a special May 6 Minnesota Supreme Court hearing at the 800-seat Buffalo High School auditorium in Buffalo, Minn.

Hmm … May 6? A hall big enough to accommodate a large crowd … maybe for a case with international interest? But no — the Supremes aren’t planning to sneak out of town to hear Coleman’s expected appeal.

May 6 is about the time the court might take up the appeal Coleman has promised within 10 days of an anticipated ruling from the election-contest court that will uphold Democrat Al Franken’s recount victory. And the Buffalo High auditorium holds about 15 times as many observers as the court’s State Judicial Center courtroom in St. Paul.

But court spokesman Kyle Christopherson tells the Minnesota Independent that another case has already been chosen for the hearing, which is one of two proceedings this year that the court will take on the road: one in the metro area and one in Greater Minnesota. (Not even 40 miles from downtown Minneapolis, Buffalo barely qualifies for the latter.)

And court spokeswoman Lissa Finne tells MnIndy there won’t be room for the general public to attend: The 800 seats are reserved for Buffalo High students. The public may be able to watch locally on cable TV, she said, or live at the court’s Web site.

Minnesota’s high court does hold hearings most months that the public is welcome to attend (pdfs for April and May).

Recount enthusiasts can read how the Senate Guru blog sizes up the five (not all seven) justices that will likely hear the Coleman case — in St. Paul.

PNC (Peeps National Convention) Riots We are social workers at Regions Hospital … We were able to witness the riots outside of the RNC this year from our curbside seat (all that was missing was some beer and a pizza for our enjoyment…we enjoyed that later at Savoys). This is a portrayal of the anarchists and other unlucky folks who were arrested on the John Ireland Bridge. Notice the demonstrator urinating over the bridge!

(Read about the original, human enactment of the RNC protester-roundup on the John Ireland Bridge here.) Back by peepular demand and also from the PiPress competition, here is the Norm Coleman-Al Franken election contest trial scene by Nancy, Nikki, Robert and Roberta Muehlhausen that we featured earlier this week — this time with speech balloons: Next are a pair of dioramas from the Peeps in Law gallery at the ABA Journal Web site. First, a vision in peeps (by Emily Good and Rachel Hughey) showing where the dispute over who’s the Minnesota’s second U.S. Senate seat may be headed: The United States Supeep Court. And here is a depiction (by Amrita Singh, Stephanie Hood and Rachelle Bergeron) of the constitutional principle on which Coleman has said he may take his case to highest court in the land, in a scene that’s sure be repeepted many times over in Iowa and Vermont: Thanks to ABAJournal.com Assistant Managing Editor Molly McDonough for bringing to MnIndy’s attention the American Bar Association’s devotion to peeps, of which we were hitherto unaware.

“I think we are done,” Franken attorney Marc Elias told reporters after the counting. “It’s no more complicated than this … More Minnesotans voted for Al Franken than for Norm Coleman.”

Asked about Coleman’s pledge to battle on, Elias said, “I don’t think there is much of a case on appeal, candidly.”

Coleman attorney Ben Ginsberg said he was “saddened and disappointed,” adding that there should have been 10 times more ballots counted — a reference to the Coleman camp’s submission of 4,800 uncounted absentee ballots they wanted the court to review.

“We will be appealing this to the Minnesota Supreme Court,” he said, as soon as the court issues its order based on today’s tally, which in Ginsberg’s estimation could come as early as this week.

Coleman’s appeal will make three claims, Ginsberg said. Voters received unequal treatment under the law when similar ballots received different treatment by local officials in different parts of the state. The election-contest judges issued a “new set of rules” with their Feb. 13 ruling restricting the types of ballots they would review. And those restrictions meant that many ballots cast on Nov. 4 fell into now-illegal categories.

Franken gained votes because in the narrow “universe” of ballots the three-judge panel agreed to review, Ginsberg said, “there were more Franken precincts.”

While his staffers tore into sealed ballot envelopes on the courtroom floor, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie sat in the second row of the courtroom gallery, looking like a man not fully at ease. He seemed happier afterward when he told reporters, “I think we’re getting much closer to the end today. This was an important next step.”

Asked if he saw an impending split between himself and Gov. Tim Pawlenty over whether to sign an election certificate, Ritchie said no. Pawlenty has signaled that he may not sign an election certificate for months — longer than a state Supreme Court would likely take to rule, suggesting a potential conflict with Ritchie. State law says both the governor and secretary of state must sign the certificate.

“I assume we are both going to follow the order of the Minnesota Supreme Court,” Ritchie said. The Supreme Court has said a certificate should be issued “at the end of the state court process.”

In reference to talk of an appeal to the federal judicial system, Ritchie said the U.S. Supreme Court “is not the state court.”

Neither Franken or Coleman was in court today. Coleman, who has made frequent appearances during the course of the seven-week trial, had another engagement, Ginsberg said. But each side’s coterie of attorneys kept their legal-eagle eyes peeled for anything untoward, but no objections or ballot-challenges were voiced.

Here’s what they were watching.

First came two hours of work as a pair of two-man teams carefully removed ballot envelopes from inside security envelopes, then removed ballots from inside ballot envelopes before unfolding and stacking them.

State Director of Elections Gary Poser was ringmaster, announcing each stage of the proceedings and standing at the center of the courtroom overseeing a two-ring circus.

Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann sat at one table as half of one of the two-man teams. He seemed aware of being in the spotlight, bobbing his head and lowering his shoulders as he expressively pressed down the unruly stack of ballots.

But democracy is messy. Each ballot had just emerged after being folded for five months or more inside two envelopes, and the stack wouldn’t stay flat. Minnesota’s reliance on paper ballots has often been pointed to with pride by state officials. This was the downside.

The only sound — in a packed courtroom that’s usually used by the state Supreme Court — was the rattle and ripping of paper.

When his team’s work was done, Gelbmann wiped the tabletop clean of any paper crumbs.

Several times, an absentee-ballot envelope contained only a loose ballot, not enclosed in the customary security envelope. In those cases, Gelbmann reached for a blank white envelope to serve (for less than an hour) as a substitute security envelope. Then he demonstrated how to moisten an envelope while you’re on camera: Put the flap into your mouth and move it from left to right. Do not stick out your tongue to lick.

Finally Poser took a seat at a broad wooden table to sort the final stack of ballots into piles for Franken, Coleman or “other.”

Franken attorney Elias and Coleman attorney Tony Trimble hovered over Poser from either side, each leaning with his weight on four fingertips pressed into the table top.

A string of more than a dozen uninterrupted votes for Franken within the first 20 counted didn’t bode well for Coleman, who never led in the cumulative total as Poser called out the ballots one by one.

In the end, Poser announced the day’s final tally: Coleman, 111; Franken 198; and other, 42. That’s fewer than 400 ballots because of a mix-up: Some ballots that the judges ordered to be opened had already been counted.

The judges received Poser’s report and court was adjourned. Counting 351 ballots had taken about three hours.

And that was one-ten-thousandth of the effort put forth during the statewide hand recount of 2.9 million ballots at the end of last year.

That recount, as Elias pointed out repeatedly to reporters, ended with the same result as the election contest phase appears to have reached today: Al Franken has more votes than Norm Coleman.

Related: Deputy Secretary of State Gelbmann didn’t vote for Franken: “No misgivings whatsoever”

You’d think a Minnesota Democrat who voted for someone other than Al Franken for U.S. Senate might have second thoughts after five months of electoral agony — especially if that voter saw the effects of Franken’s near-tie with Republican Norm Coleman up close.

“I have no misgivings whatsoever,” says Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann, who helped lead the recount work and testified for days at the election contest trial.

Gelbmann is in the spotlight again today, counting ballots as the trial reaches a finale with the three-judge panel examining as many as 400 votes that Coleman hopes, likely in vain, will erase Franken’s 225-vote recount lead.

Gelbmann, who managed Mark Dayton’s successful 2000 campaign for U.S. Senate and then headed the Democrat’s Minnesota office for six years, did not cast his ballot for Al Franken last November. Instead, he voted for Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley.

“I was very annoyed and disgusted at how both candidates [Franken and Coleman] handled the campaign, with very little focus on the issues and very much on personal attacks,” Gelbmann says.

“It was a protest vote,” he acknowledges. “But it wasn’t just a protest vote.”

Gelbmann almost achieved poster-child status for Democrats who didn’t vote for Franken when he was on the witness stand in the election contest trial in January. But an objection from Coleman’s lawyers kept him from testifying to that fact.

Barkley would make a good senator, Gelbmann says. That’s one thing Barkley and Coleman have that Franken doesn’t: experience serving in the U.S. Senate. Gov. Jesse Ventura appointed Barkley to fill out the remainder of Paul Wellstone’s term after the Democrat’s untimely death in 2002.

But Gelbmann has a personal connection that distinguishes him from the average Democratic voter. He and Barkley know each other from the late 1990s, when both worked on the third floor of the state government’s Centennial Office Building — Gelbmann as director of the Minnesota Board of Government Innovation and Cooperation, and Barkley heading up the state Office of Strategic and Long-range Planning for Ventura.

Still, Gelbmann’s ticket-splitting raises the question of what role DFL voters played in setting the stage for Minnesota’s recount drama. Franken drew plenty of criticism for shortcomings as a candidate, and political observers say Democrats who didn’t vote for him don’t have to take the blame for Franken’s post-election ordeal.

Longtime DFL activist Arvonne Fraser notes that “party loyalty isn’t what it used to be.” In her view, Franken is a “very smart guy and a very hard worker” but endorsement and primary battles “didn’t help him at all [with DFL voters].”

Eric Ostermeier, a political scientist who writes the University of Minnesota’s Smart Politics blog, found Franken’s showing to be fourth-worst in DFL Party history. In an e-mail to MnIndy, he cast GOP voters as the main actors in November’s electoral drama:

The party-loyalty angle I guess would be this: the question is probably not so much why did DFLers split their ticket (as Franken carried most of them), but rather why were Republicans less likely to defect and vote for Franken, when they were willing to defect and vote for Obama and DFL US and State House candidates.

University of Minnesota history professor Hy Berman agrees. “I would guess that very few Republicans voted for Franken.” But Berman adds: “The fact is that core DFLers did vote for Franken.”

He ascribes the 10-percentage point gap between Franken’s result in Minnesota and Barack Obama’s to two factors: Franken’s negatives as a candidate and “the existence of a Barkley.”

“Franken being a flawed candidate had nothing to do with the campaign he ran but who he is,” Berman says.

For fans of this sort of compressed video history, there’s also “Minneapolis in 19 Minutes Flat,” a film shown at the Minnesota Historical Society’s Mill City Museum in Minneapolis, with comic narration by storyteller Kevin Kling.

But if it’s the visual history of the recount that really checks your box, check out MnIndy’s “On Monotony: The best and worst of recount photography.”

Foley, an Ohio State law professor who studies disputed American elections and has tracked Minnesota’s Senate election saga closely, told the Minnesota Independent weeks ago that the state’s Supreme Court would likely decide the case — and that the three judges’ continued unanimity was critical. Coleman’s attorneys now make no bones about their intention to appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court for help in reversing Franken’s 225-vote recount victory. 

Tuesday’s ruling, which Foley calls “unsurprising,” means the only legal issue still in play is whether Minnesota’s method of counting votes is so poor it violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. Here’s Foley’s bottom line:

Coleman’s Equal Protection claim is hardly a slam-dunk winner. But various possible refined and narrower versions of this argument, depending on the strength of the relevant evidence, are not obvious slam-dunk losers, either, under Bush v. Gore. For this reason, it remains important how the three-judge court explains its final ruling on the Equal Protection claim, even if all observers expect the court to rule against Coleman.