{"id":6931,"date":"2009-02-20T11:50:15","date_gmt":"2009-02-20T19:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bradblog.com\/?p=6931"},"modified":"2009-02-20T11:50:49","modified_gmt":"2009-02-20T19:50:49","slug":"coleman-flip-flops-yet-again-on-counting-rejected-absentee-ballots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=6931","title":{"rendered":"Coleman Flip-Flops Yet Again on Counting Rejected Absentee Ballots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/MN_FrankenColeman_Contest_ColemanGinsberg_020509a_flipflop.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">Two quick updates to the Coleman\/Franken Election Contest\/Mini-Series playing out in Minnesota, both via TPM&#8217;s Eric Kleefeld, since we&#8217;re on another deadline today&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>1)<\/b> All of a sudden yesterday, the trial began <i>rapidly<\/i> <a href=\"http:\/\/tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com\/2009\/02\/minnesota-trial-finally-picks-up-the-pace.php\">picking up pace<\/a> for some reason. A record &#8220;nine and a half&#8221; officials were &#8220;sworn in, direct-examined, cross-examined, re-direct-examined and excused&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>2)<\/b> Coleman may be setting an all-time flip-floppery record, as he has changed positions, yet again, on originally rejected absentee ballots that he agreed should be counted during the post-election hand-count. The counting of those ballots resulted in a 176 net gain for Franken, leading to his final 225 vote lead over Coleman at the end of that hand-count. As Kleefeld, who <a href=\"http:\/\/tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com\/2009\/02\/coleman-changes-position-yet-again-now-wants-to-throw-out-already-counted-ballots-he-said-were-legal.php\">details the back-story here<\/a>, describes it: &#8220;Coleman was originally against counting them, then for it, then against it, then for it, and now against it, in that order.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While the new position <i>seems<\/i> nearly insane (both on a legal, and practical level), the method to the madness is becoming clearer and clearer: Coleman, and his top legal hatchet-man\/arsonist, <a href=\"http:\/\/rawstory.com\/news\/2008\/Coleman_lawyer_at_center_of_Swift_0201.html\">&#8220;Swiftboat&#8221; Ben Ginsberg<\/a>, are setting up the case for an appeal to higher authorities, to argue that the election was simply too close to call, the results within the &#8220;margin of error&#8221;, beset with &#8220;illegally&#8221; counted ballots, and otherwise &#8220;fatally-flawed&#8221;, and the election contest trial itself &#8220;a legal quagmire&#8221;. All in hopes of asking somebody, anybody, (SCOTUS please?) for a do-over election.<\/p>\n<p>We discussed that gambit, and its likelihood of success in <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=6925\">this previous article<\/a>. All of Coleman&#8217;s moves, of late, seem to support that same general legal strategy.<\/p>\n<p>Amusingly and ironically enough, it was <i>Franken<\/i> who the nutty Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) recently <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=6918\">described as &#8220;desperate&#8221;<\/a>. Go figure.<\/p>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-START--><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f0e0; border:2px solid #6b5a2e; border-radius:6px; padding:10px 14px; text-align:center; font-family:Georgia,serif;\"><span style=\"display:block; margin:0 0 8px 0; color:#3a2e0e; font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.BradBlog.com\">The BRAD BLOG<\/a> covers your electoral system, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Donate\">a donation<\/a> to help us keep going.<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Donate\" style=\"display:inline-block; background:#6b5a2e; color:#ffffff; padding:6px 18px; border-radius:4px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:0.9em;\">Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-END--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two quick updates to the Coleman\/Franken Election Contest\/Mini-Series playing out in Minnesota, both via TPM&#8217;s Eric Kleefeld, since we&#8217;re on another deadline today&#8230; 1) All of a sudden yesterday, the trial began rapidly picking up pace for some reason. A record &#8220;nine and a half&#8221; officials were &#8220;sworn in, direct-examined, cross-examined, re-direct-examined and excused&#8221; 2) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,122,219,233],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-6931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-al-franken","category-election-2008","category-minnesota","category-us-senate"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6931"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=6931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}