trial

Bigger image and artists’ description after the jump.

File this under “It Can’t Hurt to Ask”: Al Franken’s lawyers plan to request Friday that judges dismiss Norm Coleman’s lawsuit contesting the Minnesota U.S. Senate election recount that put Franken up by 225 votes.

Senate Majority Harry Reid is drawing a new line in the snow, naming a date by which he’s pledging to have Al Franken seated as Minnesota’s next senator: April Fool’s Day. Democrats will invoke the Senate’s privilege to seat members to the body regardless of where former Sen. Norm Coleman’s court battle stands at that [...]

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 [...]

If only they’d used washable markers.

Norm Coleman’s campaign this morning asked the judges in Minnesota’s Senate election contest trial to stop the secretary of state’s office from marking out numbers on 933 absentee ballots that link them to the envelopes in which they arrived. But state workers have already blacked out almost all of the numbers.

UPDATE: The Secretary of State’s office now says half of the ballots remain unredacted.

Norm Coleman’s campaign sent another e-mail plea for money today, this time linked to a new video featuring nearly a dozen Republican leaders also asking for cash to help the former U.S. senator regain his seat. The e-mail cites Democratic opponent Al Franken’s use of the title “Senator-Elect” to draw donations and quickly ramps up [...]

The Minnesota senate election contest trial could take a turn today, and you can watch it here live (via The UpTake) starting at 1 p.m. Central Time. Lawyers for Norm Coleman and Al Franken will make their pitches for the court to examine or not examine 4,800 absentee ballots that so far aren’t included in [...]

Al Franken’s attorney, Marc Elias, hailed a ruling today by the three-judge panel in Minnesota’s Senate election trial to count 24 (and possibly 25) rejected absentee ballots. Elias said he was glad to see people enfranchised, but also praised the judges “because of the careful method [they used] in analyzing these ballots.”

As Al Franken and Norm Coleman ready themselves for a fourth month in electoral limbo, are they also readying to serve in the U.S. Senate? Al Franken, who’s never been a U.S. senator, says he’s “ready to go on Day 1.” Six-year Senate veteran Norm Coleman, out of office one month, sounds less sure: “I’m trying to be ready.”

Norm Coleman suggested in a TV interview Sunday that reporters’ asking about charges of illegally funneled money cost him the Nov. 4 Senate election. “That could have been a quiet story,” Coleman said. “It could have been a story that came out the day after the election.”