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So Ana IM's me, and I can tell through the text that she was almost out of breath with excitement or fear or something. But then I remembered shes been observing the Minnesota Senate court challenge. Turns out something rather interesting happened. Luckily, TPM has it covered:
Norm Coleman's lawyers just had a very awkward moment in court, in their attempt to prove that absentee ballots were double-counted -- it turns out they've failed to share evidence with the Franken camp, involving a key witness.The Coleman camp called Pamela Howell, a Republican election worker in Minneapolis, who said she heard another election judge exclaim that they had forgotten to properly label duplicates of absentee ballots that had been too damaged for the machines to count. She also said she did not recall whether they had made a note of this in the precinct incident logs.
Franken lawyer David Lillehaug then got up, setting out to impugn Howell as an unreliable, partisan witness. She admitted that she called up Coleman's legal team during the recount, ...
Holy crap, more here. TU Ana.
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I may be more entertained than informed on the matter, but I think that Howell was the Coleman team's ONLY WITNESS to their claim that duplicate ballots were counted in Minneapolis. In any case, today was also significant in that it was far and beyond the most fun of all the 23 days elapsed thus far in this Contest. Theuptake has been outstanding in providing coverage of the proceedings - go here and watch Howell stare blankly and stammer and not obey the judges while deciding whether or not to lie on the stand:
The Howell testimony, direct and cross (at 16:40):
http://www.mogulus.com/theuptake/ondemand/pla_6452528468179140861?playeraspectwidth=4&playeraspectheight=3
Franken attorney Lillehaug asks that Howell's testimony be stricken (Coleman lawyer Freidberg is too ashamed to speak into the mic, so you'll miss that), and then calls the witness back to the stand to show prejudice. The look on Howell's mug at 4:40 is priceless:
http://www.mogulus.com/theuptake/ondemand/pla_4362313573559111743?playeraspectwidth=4&playeraspectheight=3
In this clip, the judges strike the witness testimony. Die-hards will also get to see Minneapolis Elections Director Cindy Richert juggle files and flip through pages to answer Friedberg's questions which, themselves, aim toward nothing much more than getting his own shit straight. It's as though he were still in discovery; the judges have exercised much (MUCH) restraint in not holding his courtroom behavior in contempt:
http://www.mogulus.com/theuptake/ondemand/pla_5156121578934679368?playeraspectwidth=4&playeraspectheight=3
Posted by: Ana | February 25, 2009 8:57 PM
Who's paying the bills to keep this charade going? Is this covered by the RNC, or is it out of Colemans personal pocket?
Posted by: Spiv | February 26, 2009 9:12 AM
Spiv - the Republican National Committee has ponied up at least $1/4 million to Coleman's (post-election) campaign treasury, apparently to weaken the Democrats' bloc in the Senate and thereby extort more billions in tax cuts for their p/i/m/p/s/ patriotic contributors.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | February 26, 2009 10:45 AM