Roger Magnuson

The Minnesota Supreme Court was visited by ghosts of Last Week Past on Tuesday afternoon as the two sides in the statewide Senate recount paid their second visit in five days. Attorneys for Democrat Al Franken and Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman who debated last Friday about wrongly rejected absentee ballots argued over different issue today: the Coleman camp’s request to stop the recount to determine whether votes on ballots that were damaged and then duplicated for counting purposes on Election Day were counted twice during the recount.

You can’t tell the players in the Minnesota Senate recount drama with a scorecard — even a Politico blog that’s called The Scoreboard misattributed a quote (since corrected) on Monday from Marc Elias, a lawyer for Al Franken, as coming from Fritz Knaak, U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s recount attorney. Minnesota media mostly keep those two straight, but even locals find the profusion of Scandinavian surnames in the various recount venues vexing. More including the Anderson Effect and a Sven-and-Ole routine, after the jump.

Wednesday was a rough day for U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman in the three-ring circus of his re-election effort, but things could have been worse.
Coleman announced that he intends to attempt a risky use of campaign funds to pay high-priced attorneys and investigators to defend against charges that could result from an FBI investigation into $75,000 that his benefactor, [...]

The U.S. Senate contest turned to the Minnesota Supreme Court this afternoon. At stake was whether improperly rejected absentee ballots (thought to number roughly 1,500) will ultimately be included in the recount. The Coleman campaign is seeking a temporary restraining order to stop local election officials from counting such ballots. It’s uncertain when the court will issue a ruling.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty appointed longtime friend Eric Magnuson as chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court on Monday, replacing retiring justice Russell Anderson. Most accounts suggest that Magnuson will be a superb justice on the high court, but his close ties to Pawlenty and his lack of experience on the bench have raised questions for [...]