Sparring over the pace of testimony marked the start of the Senate election contest trial. Attorneys for Al Franken accused Norm Coleman's lawyers of dragging out the process by taking testimony about absentee ballots that were correctly rejected.
David Lillehaug took Coleman's team to task for not answering pre-trial motions seeking specifics on why each of 4,700 disqualified ballots should be revived now and counted. "We are actually in a worse position as far as being able to defend the specifics of this case than we were when the summary judgment motion was filed," Lillehaug told the three judges hearing the case. "We have no explanation as to each ballot, why each was allegedly improperly rejected, and we have no discussion why that rejection was improper."
He called Coleman's method of going ballot-by-ballot, county-by-county "extremely inefficient." "And that's why we made it through part of Ramsey, Washington, Anoka and Pine in the space of two weeks so far."
Coleman's team pointed the finger at Franken's litigators, saying things would move a lot quicker in the Saint Paul courtroom if they were allowed to group the ballots in categories and agree to treat similar mistakes equally. "I would love to go back and now come in front of you with about 900 mismatched signatures and say 'Here they are, you look at them yourself!' That's the way this case should be handled!"
Coleman's trial attorney Joe Friedberg told the judges, "They blocked us from doing that!" He predicted that would cut the length of the trial down to one-tenth of what it will go employing the current county-by-county progression.
Lillehaug asked the three judges, Denise Reilly, Kurt Marben and Elizabeth Hayden, to delay testimony from a Dakota County official until after Coleman's campaign removes the ballots they know were properly rejected.
The judges turned down Lillehaug's request, and allowed Friedberg to question Dakota County elections manager Kevin Boyle.
The three judges met privately with lawyers from both sides during recesses from the trial, in an effort to expedite the process.
Coleman is using the election contest to legally challenge the recount, which left Al Franken up by 225 votes. His strategy is based on finding new Coleman votes among the rejected absentees that were never opened and counted.
Coleman's team is also looking to strip votes from Franken, by striking down a group of 133 Minneapolis ballots that were lost after being run through ballot scanning machines on election night.
(Copyright 2009 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)
