MINNEAPOLIS -- In the clearest sign yet that he has dramatically shifted strategies since falling behind in the U.S. Senate recount, Republican Norm Coleman's campaign said Monday that it would push to have all 12,000 absentee ballots rejected in the election reconsidered and to ensure that those wrongly set aside are counted.
The sweeping new proposal, Coleman attorneys said, could bring as many as 7,000 more ballots into the race in which Democrat Al Franken has held a
225-vote lead since the recount ended Jan. 5. And it illustrates the first pivotal task facing the three judges who will hear Coleman's court challenge to Franken's lead beginning this week -- figuring out exactly how far-reaching the legal challenge should be.
The latest move also revealed the about-face both campaigns have made over the past month: When Coleman held an unofficial lead in the recount last month, his lawyers argued before the Minnesota Supreme Court that rejected absentee ballots should not be part of the recount. Now, with Franken holding a lead gained in part by successfully arguing to include some rejected absentee ballots, the Franken campaign reacted coolly to reconsidering all 12,000 rejected absentee
ballots.
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"We're not going to respond to any proposal they make until they figure out what, exactly, their proposal is," said Franken spokesman Andy Barr, who said Coleman's legal team had only the day before privately floated a different proposal.
As early as Wednesday, the judges must start making decisions about the scope and very existence of the court fight. Franken wants the judges to dismiss Coleman's challenge outright. They will hear arguments on that motion Wednesday. Failing that, Franken's lawyers say the court should limit its work to merely verifying the math and other decisions of the State Canvassing Board that certified the recount.
Coleman, by contrast, wants permission to conduct an exhaustive inspection of any ballots cast, hoping to find new irregularities or substantiate old claims that the canvassing board refused to consider.
Their starkly different proposals underscore an aggressive approach to the contest by both candidates that also foreshadows a potential federal court challenge by the loser.
Coleman's lawyers said they proposed re-
examining all 12,000 rejected absentee ballots during a closed legal hearing with the three-judge panel on Friday, and said that while Franken's lawyers seemed opposed to the idea, the judges were somewhat receptive. The campaign wants all rejected ballot envelopes transported to
St. Paul by Friday.
The 900-plus rejected absentee ballots included in the State Canvassing Board recount, they argued, were added through a flawed process in which individual counties applied different standards before accepting them.
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"There's a great disparity" in how individual counties initially examined rejected absentee ballots, said Tony Trimble, a Coleman recount attorney. "Some counties rejected very, very few. Some counties rejected a huge percentage -- [a] double-digit percentage."
Coleman recount attorney Fritz Knaak said the proposal translated into counting all rejected absentee ballots as long as the voter was "alive on Election Day," had properly registered to vote and did not otherwise vote in the disputed U.S. Senate election.
