Coleman: Lawsuit a ‘virtual certainty’

Top lawyers for
Sen. Norm Coleman’s (R-Minn.) campaign said Wednesday that a lawsuit
challenging the results of one of the closest Senate races in history is all
but assured.

The statement
comes after the Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously rejected a suit
filed by Coleman’s campaign. The lawsuit that sought to prevent a state board
from certifying election results that Coleman had alleged includes errors.

{mosads}In a 5-0
decision, the court ruled that the state’s Board of Canvassers had the
authority to certify election results that might have included so-called
“duplicate ballots.”

The Coleman
campaign had claimed that such ballots, created by local election officials to
mirror original ballots that were somehow damaged, were sometimes counted twice
by accident, and should not be included.

“We are deeply
disappointed in that result. The Supreme Court decision virtually guarantees
this election will be decided with an election contest,” Fritz Knaak told
reporters on a conference call on Christmas Eve. “There’s no question, I mean
no question in our minds that [a lawsuit] will happen now.”

Should the
Coleman campaign file a contest, which it must do within seven days of the end
of ballots being counted, the election results cannot be certified and no one
will be sworn in when the 111th Congress meets January 5.

Knaak and Coleman
co-counsel Tony Trimble still predicted the first-term Republican would come
out ahead of Franken at the end of the recount, though Democrats sounded a
dramatically different and much more optimistic tone.

“Minnesotans have
waited a long time to find out who won this race — and today’s unanimous
ruling means that the process can move forward despite attempts to halt its
progress and cast doubt on the result,” Franken spokesman Andy Barr said in a
statement. “Now we approach the end of a recount that Minnesotans can be proud
of — and one that we strongly believe will result in the election of Al
Franken.”

As many as 1,600
previously disqualified absentee ballots that the state Supreme Court ordered to
be part of the final tally are yet to be counted. Neither campaign would
comment on the status of court-ordered negotiations to resolve how to count
those ballots.

Counting those
ballots is not expected to be completed until January 5, meaning Minnesota will
be represented by just one senator until the various court actions run their
course. The lawsuits themselves could take “potentially quite a while,” Knaak
predicted.