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.

Noah Kunin (Aaron Landry, Flickr)

When it comes to rejection and Norm Coleman’s campaign, Noah Kunin knows a thing or two. As senior political correspondent for The UpTake, he’s seen his questions ignored at official Coleman press conferences; his UpTake colleagues have been dubbed not “legitimate media” and refused access to campaign “media availabilities“; and GOP chair Ron Carey called The UpTake a “partisan, liberal blog” as a way of attacking Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who referenced The UpTake’s video feeds in an email.

But what Kunin wasn’t prepared for was the rejection of his absentee ballot. This afternoon, Kunin sent out a message on Twitter from the Senate contest trial that his name  appeared in a database of some 150 names of voters whose absentee ballots Team Coleman alleges were rejected. (His last name was misspelled “Kunim,” an error on the Coleman team’s part, he says; he checked with his Plymouth polling place, where it was correctly spelled.) He hasn’t yet responded to my query for comment, but the Pioneer Press’ Rachel Stassen-Berger, who has likely covered as many hours of the recount and contest as Kunin has, did. “That is righteously funny,” he said.

Update: Reached this afternoon, Kunin said he was unaware that his absentee ballot was rejected. “My brain is pretty blown right now.” He’s confused about why his ballot was rejected. He’s certain his ballot was witnessed correctly, sealed in the proper envelope and mailed properly. In fact, since he was close to the deadline, he over-stamped: “I remember distinctly putting extra stamps on it; I wanted to overpay just to make sure it got there.”

How has this news been received in the courtroom?

“The Coleman campaign has been cool to this revelation,” Kunin says. “We’ll see if I’m called to the stand or not.”

As for the earlier rejections of The UpTake from Coleman’s events, perhaps that problem will ease up a bit. This week, The UpTake was officially accepted into the capitol press corps [pdf].

Photo courtesy of Aaron Landry.

That brought a charge of bias from blogger Michael Brodkorb (who has worked for GOP candidates and is reportedly weighing a run for a top party office). And so an online battle was waged today, a sideshow to the recount drama or perhaps a warm-up for tonight’s big rematch between Franken and U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman on Political Championship Wrestling.

UPDATE: Braublog has this statement from the Franken folks: “Media is welcome to broadcast or stream live outside Franken for Senate headquarters, but in an effort to preserve the operational integrity of our workplace, footage inside Franken for Senate headquarters is generally not available for live streaming or live broadcast. Exceptions will be considered and granted at the discretion of the campaign.”

Here’s a play-by-play of events over the last two days in the words of the players themselves, mostly from the recount liveblog at The Uptake unless otherwise noted.

MONDAY

12:34 Mike McIntee: We will have a video from the Franken presser up soon

12:50 Jason Barnett: We are playing back a news conference that happened about 40 minutes ago at Franken Campaign Headquarters-

TUESDAY

10:12 Mike McIntee: Chuck Olsen will be covering the presser at 11:30am today. The reason given for not live streaming is they believe the Coleman campaign watches it and then tailors it’s news conference to respond to what the Franken campaign says. I think it’s a silly restriction, but since it is being applied to all media, we’re abiding. Checking on the Monday press conference. We had technical problems so it may not be up in You Tube or Blip yet.

10:21 Mike McIntee: While we find the restriction silly, the Coleman Campaign’s refusal to even let us in the building to cover its news conference is terribly disturbing.

11:07 Noah Kunin: The Coleman Campaign has never formally explained why we are banned from campaign press conferences, nor formally explained why their campaign does not answer our questions during press conferences at the Capitol (despite repeated requests for an explanation)

11:09 Noah Kunin: Coleman’s campaign has allowed us access into official events in Coleman’s capacity as Senator on a regular basis and answers our questions during those events, even if it is the Senator himself answering those questions. In fact, during the last event, the Senator took the time to single us out for our relevant and probing questions.

11:12 Noah Kunin: Since the Senate office recogonizes us as press, why the Campaign office blackout? There are multiple reasons I think. The most important aspect of this “relationship” though is their attempt to create their own reality. By blocking reasoanble access to their campaign, they make us seem more like a DFL-only media mouthpiece, which in turn then becomes the unspoken basis of the original blackout, transposed into the past.

11:44 Mike McIntee: Next “big thing” today is the Franken press conference which is happening right now. We are not able to live stream today, but will have it for playback shortly after it ends.

11:44 Mike McIntee: To clarify… that’s the Franken campaign… not the candidate himself.

11:50 chuckumentary: Franken campaign says 84 votes separate them from Coleman (using FrankenMath) #mnrecount

11:51 Mike McIntee: Chuck Olsen (Chuckumentary) is at the Franken news conference. He will feed us the raw video once it is over and he can get to a place with internet connections.

11:52 chuckumentary: Franken has received rejected absentee lists (all or in part) from 66 counties, 6400 rejected ballots so far #mnrecount

11:54 chuckumentary: MPLS had a number of rejected ballots due to admin error inc. registration – SOS own database shows voter was registered #mnrecount

11:55 chuckumentary: Itasca county rejected an absentee because “we screwed up” and put in reject pile #mnrecount

11:58 theuptake: Franken campaign says 84 votes separate them from Coleman (using FrankenMath) #mnrecount

11:58 chuckumentary: Lost ballots total “in the hundreds” – visual evidence of uncounted ballot http://twitpic.com/nzfb ballot stuck in machine #mnrecount

1:42 Chuckumentary: At last, here is part 1 of Franken press conf. from today

2:19 THE UPTAKE COMPLIES WITH GAG ORDER REQUEST FROM TEAM FRANKEN
By Michael B. Brodkorb | November 25, 2008
According to public comments made today by The UpTake’s Mike McIntee, Team Franken requested that the UpTake (and actual media outlets) no longer provide live video of their press conferences. While WCCO-TV did a live shot from Team Franken’s headquarters, The UpTake complied with gag order request and didn’t provide live video of Team Franken’s 11:30 a.m. press conference. Team Franken was apparently concerned about outside groups seeing their press conference live, so The Uptake buried the live feed. No credible media outlet would accept the terms issued by Team Franken, but since The UpTake isn’t a credible media outlet, or even a media outlet, they complied. Where’s the angry video from The UpTake expressing outrage at Team Franken’s instructions? I wouldn’t expect to see any credible outrage from this so-called band of “citizen journalists.”

2:28 dbrauer: Blog fight! @mbrodkorb is all up in @theuptake’s junk: http://is.gd/901B

2:32 Chuckumentary: we’ve been Brodkorb’d!

Responses to “THE UPTAKE COMPLIES WITH GAG ORDER REQUEST FROM TEAM FRANKEN”

2:35 haha Says: Cool! So, will you take them with you to the next Norm conference? I notice they’re not putting up any Coleman tape at all.

2:36 Ralph Kramden Says: Hey Michael – can you get the Coleman campaign to allow TheUptake to have access to their pressers, if TheUptake agrees to the same restrictions?

2:37 Jeff Rosenberg Says: Hypocrisy, thy party is GOP. Let me get this straight: The UpTake isn’t allowed to broadcast video from Coleman press conferences. But you’re upset that they didn’t broadcast video from the Franken press conference. Until the Coleman campaign will allow video from their press conferences, I don’t see what your problem is.

2:46 Danno Says: Gag order? So, you’re saying that the Uptake, putting up video of the Franken press conference after the conference is over, is a gag order? So, what do you call the complete denial of entry to the Coleman headquarters? Banishment? Terrorism? 

2:59 Jason DeRusha Says: I understand that the purpose of this site is to expose the practices of Democrats, not Republicans. But in fairness, how do you not acknowledge that the Coleman campaign has refused to allow The UpTake access to its news conferences? I’d be curious why the Franken campaign wanted no live streaming… especially considering The UpTake still aired the entire thing, just on a delay.

3:01 Chuck Olsen Says: Michael, Some fact-correction for you. The UpTake, much like C-SPAN, provides live unfiltered coverage of political events in Minnesota as our resources allow, including press conferences and debates. You’ve highly praised us for providing this service in the past, face-to-face with me and on-camera. We made it clear to the Franken campaign that we would not abide by a ban on live streaming of their press conferences unless it was an across-to-board restriction applicable to all press. They issued a statement to that effect. The WCCO live shot you refer to taken *outside* Franken HQ as you see here:

http://wcco.com/election/missing.ballots.found.2.873776.html

The UpTake is free to do the same thing, but it has little value. Instead, we live-twitter from the press conference and are the first to get that information to the public. In the case of Coleman’s campaign, we and MN Independent are being singled out while other press and citizen journalists like yourself are allowed to cover the event. This is a disservice to Minnesota, and unethical. We’d love to provide live unfiltered coverage of Coleman press conferences, or even taped unfiltered coverage. I’m disappointed at the way you’ve characterized this and it seems to go against what you’ve said in the past.

2:42 Mike McIntee: And Mr. Brodkorb, as usual, reports facts selectively, without making any phone calls to confirm anything and apparently doesn’t know the difference between a “live shot” in a newscast vs. a continuous live feed. We’ll chairitably chalk this up to his non-journalism/media background. The UpTake is treating the Franken restrction on live streaming like an embargo and will choose to deal with the restrictions on a case by case basis. We’ve been told the restriction has been applied equally to all media. Knowing that the restriction would likely be in place today we diverted our live streaming card to another location.

2:48 Chuckumentary: Yes, I consider MDE a citizen journalist and should be allowed into a Franken press event. The UpTake is a non-profit journalism organization, no question we are press regardless of political views.

Noah Kunin from The UpTake has been tracking the crew all weekend as they’ve been trying to compile footage for Monday’s piece. He was there when a producer from The O’Reilly Factor ambushed Bill Moyers after his talk Saturday morning — or, more accurately, tried to ambush him.

Moyers, uncowed, turned the table on the under-gunned producer, inviting him to appear on next Friday’s show. “If you can’t come on my show, send somebody below you. Send Bill O’Reilly,” he said. “Bill is not a journalist, he’s a pugilist.”

The indignant producers persisted in his questioning of Moyers, but the PBS mainstay fired back, with a kinder approach. “I like to honor the people who do the real work in journalism; that’s the producers and reporters,” he said. “It isn’t anchors. It isn’t blowhards.”

The producer’s feeble comback to Moyers’ anchors-and-blowhards dig: “That’s you.”

Look for more on this altercation from The UpTake and the American News Project‘s Davin Hutchins who appears at the end of Kunin’s footage.

6/9/08: Minnesota Monitor is now the Minnesota Independent. Check out our new digs.