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Political parties spar over Coleman's next move
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The heads of Minnesota's two largest political parties waged a rhetorical battle Thursday over Norm Coleman's decision to keep fighting for his old job. DFL chair Brian Melendez called on the Republican to concede the race to Democrat Al Franken, who now leads by 312 votes in the US Senate race that's now in its sixth month of overtime. "If Norm Coleman wants to go through an appeal, fine," Melendez told reporters at the State Capitol, "At some point you've got to throw it in and that day is now." While Coleman's first appeal in district court isn't finished yet the former Senator is already planning to take his case to the Minnesota Supreme Court. "I think an appeal would be completely justified if there were some kind of appealable error," Melendez told reporters at the Capitol, "But look at was we had here; a meticulous, transparent, broadcast on video court process where there was no discernable mistake by the three judges." Melendez unveiled the DFL's new website, www.giveitupnorm.com which features a video montage of TV news clips about pending critical issues in the Senate. Minnesota's been getting by with only one senator since Coleman's term expired in January. "And the court was unanimous," Melendez remarked, "It's not like there was a split decision here, it's not like there was a close call." GOP backlash State Republican Party chairman Ron Carey held his own news conference Thursday criticizing the DFL for pressuring Coleman to step aside. "We're only in the third quarter," Carey quipped, "But the Democrats want Minnesotans to believe that the game is over." Carey repeated the themes voiced many times during the trial by Coleman's legal team, including the notion that not all voters were treated equally because election law was not applied uniformly across the state on Election Day. "I don't know how many Minnesotans are going to say you should have one standard if you live in Shakopee and a different standard if you live in Savage." He also blasted the three trial judges for excluding 4,400 rejected absentee ballots Coleman sought to have counted in the trial. The panel, in a February 13th ruling, chose to apply the strictest standard possible when it came to deciding which rejected absentee ballots could be revived. The judges applied the full letter of the law when choosing a group of 351 absentees to be counted in court. Many local election officials in Minnesota were more lenient with absentee voters who made mistakes. "How can a person stand here with a straight face and say that is fair?" Carey asked, "If these judges used the rules that were in place on Election Night and opened the remaining 4,400 ballots we would know who won the election and we could all move on to other issues." Initially it was Franken who battled in court to get the names of the rejected absentee voters, and it was Coleman who asked the Supreme Court at the time to keep any of those ballots from being brought back into the race. Coleman's radio comments In an interview on a Fargo radio station Thursday Coleman defended his decision to continue his court battle. "We need it to get over, but I tell folks this is not fast-food justice," Coleman told AM 1100 The Flag talk show host Scott Hennen, "We need to make sure that all votes that should be counted are counted." "I'm confident because the votes that are out there are votes that will turn a tide here," Coleman said. "There's no question about that. They come from mostly Republican areas because the votes from the Democrat areas have already been counted." Franken's communications director Jess McIntosh disputed that. "Independent media analysis confirmed that the majority of the ballots counted by the court this week came from counties that Coleman carried," McIntosh told the Associated Press. Losing Ground Coleman has continued to lose ground since Election Day, when he led by 715 votes in the unofficial machine count. The county canvassing process dropped his lead to 215 within a week of the election. That margin amounted to a staggering 1/100th of one percent of the 2.9 million votes cast November 4th, which triggered an automatic manual recount. When that process wrapped up December 5th, Coleman led by only 192. But that figure didn't reflect thousands of ballots that had been challenged by the two campaigns at the recount tables. Most of those ballots were withdrawn voluntarily when it became clear they were frivolous objections. On December 19th, when the State Canvassing Board finished a review of 941 challenged ballots, Franken had pulled in front of Coleman by 49 votes. On January 3 the Secretary of State's office opened and counted 933 rejected absentee ballots, which had been revived in a parallel process using rules set up by the State Supreme Court. Franken extended his lead to 225 that day. Tuesday he widened his lead to 312 after another pile of rejected absentees were reinstated and counted in the courtroom.
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