marc elias

In what could be the last time the forces of Al Franken and Norm Coleman clash within the same room, the drama at yesterday’s state Supreme Court hearing didn’t disappoint.

Every ballot tells a story. Or maybe it doesn’t. That’s the debate that attorneys for Al Franken and Norm Coleman grappled with in oral arguments this morning before the Minnesota Supreme Court in the U.S. Senate election contest. Following a seven-week trial — which featured 142 witnesses and roughly 20,000 pages of legal documents — a three-judge panel determined that Franken won the election by 312 votes.

Lawyers of all shapes and sizes crowded a Minnesota Supreme Court hearing today in the squabble over who will be the state’s second U.S. Senator: Norm Coleman or Al Franken. Both sides made oral arguments, as the state’s sole Senator, Amy Klobuchar, had warned there was no “Susan Boyle” moment.

Al Franken won the U.S. Senate contest fair and square. That’s the gist of the Democrat’s 53-page brief filed Monday with the Minnesota Supreme Court. Franken wants the state’s highest court to affirm the ruling by a three-judge panel that he won the U.S. Senate contest by 312 votes and order that he be issued an election certificate immediately.

Lawyers for Al Franken are trying to turn Norm Coleman’s recent media blitz into a justice blitz, using comments from the Republican campaign in news reports to persuade the the Minnesota Supreme Court to speed up Coleman’s appeal.

Norm Coleman isn’t the only Minnesota candidate for U.S. Senate to exhibit a mild case of hypocrisy while pressing his case in the media lately. Here’s what Al Franken is quoted as saying in an interview in today’s edition of that national newspaper, the New York Times: ”I’ve been trying to do mainly Minnesota media and turn down [...]

Al Franken will be the next senator from Minnesota. That’s the message conveyed by Marc Elias, the Franken campaign’s lead recount attorney, on a conference call Tuesday afternoon. Not surprisingly, Elias praised yesterday’s ruling by a three-judge panel that declared Franken the winner in the U.S. Senate contest.

The danger of paper cuts was greater than the chance that Al Franken would lose his 225-vote lead to Norm Coleman today as Minnesota officials ripped open 351 more ballots from last year’s U.S. senate race in front of the state’s election-contest court. Franken increased his lead by 87 votes. “I think we are done,” said Franken attorney Marc Elias afterward.

Norm Coleman’s already grim prospects for prevailing in the ongoing U.S. Senate contest were dealt another significant blow this afternoon. The three-judge panel hearing the case ruled that only 400 rejected absentee ballots should be considered for inclusion in the final vote tally.

Three Republican groups are telling the federal government they agree with Democrat Al Franken on something: There should be more ways for donors to send more dollars to support the rivals in Minnesota’s ongoing U.S. Senate election contest.