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Chapter 3: How Franken's attorneys outmaneuvered Coleman's team to secure the Senate seat.
St. Paul Pioneer Press ^ | 9/19/2009 | Dave Orrick

Posted on 09/21/2009 9:11:28 AM PDT by mojito

Tony Trimble couldn't catch a break.

As one of the lead attorneys for Sen. Norm Coleman following Election Day, he hadn't stopped working in months.

And as he watched the Republican's lead over Democrat Al Franken slip steadily and then finally vanish in the largest recount in American history, he marveled at how everything seemed to be breaking Franken's way. Clerical corrections, countless one- and two-vote shifts from sloppily filled-out ballots, major judicial rulings. They all added to Franken's vote quarry.

In the closing days of the recount, Trimble watched, dumbstruck, as 933 rejected absentee ballots — once the domain of Republicans — were opened and counted. "Franken ... Franken ... Coleman ... Franken."

"I felt like I was in the middle of the desert," said Trimble, a stalwart Republican whose knowledge of election law traced to his childhood in Walker, Minn., where his parents were active in the party and his mother was an election judge during the 2008 election. A colleague concluded Trimble was "traumatized" by the event.

In truth, not every break had gone to Franken, but so many had that it made the difference.

For Marc Elias, a Franken attorney and D.C. heavyweight who had fought to get those ballots opened, what had transpired was merely the manifestation of a post-election philosophy he espouses: "The will of the electorate is going to come out one way or the other."

To Trimble and many Republicans, the Democrats had outfoxed,out-argued, and out-dataed them.

(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Politics/Elections; US: Minnesota
KEYWORDS: 111th; alfranken; franken; lawyers; mn2008; normcoleman
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All the bloody details.
1 posted on 09/21/2009 9:11:30 AM PDT by mojito
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To: mojito

Scam.


2 posted on 09/21/2009 9:16:51 AM PDT by Crim
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To: mojito

The unfortunate residents of that state may accept this.

However, if it’s done on a national level, there will be a revolt. And not a pretty one.


3 posted on 09/21/2009 9:17:21 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: mojito

I’m sick and tired of being outmanuevered by libs. When do we start outmanuevering these asshats!?


4 posted on 09/21/2009 9:19:40 AM PDT by albie
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To: mojito
the Democrats had outfoxed,out-argued, and out-dataed them

Don't they always?

I'm thinking about the Starr investigation, when they had Lewinsky by the throat. They never squeezed her to find out where she got the (suborning perjury) Talking Points Memo in order to work their way up the food chain.

Democrats are wolves. Republicans are lambs.

5 posted on 09/21/2009 9:20:22 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler ("People are idiots." -Thomas A. Caswell)
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To: Crim

As we saw in Florida, any factor which impairs the ability to repeatedly read a ballot during a recount is going to hurt the majority candidate in that batch more than the minority candidate in that batch, simply because the majority candidate has more ballots subject to being tattered, etc.


6 posted on 09/21/2009 9:20:24 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Love me, love my cat.)
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To: mojito

“Elias again had proved himself worthy of his status as the go-to gunner for Democrats nationwide. He represents all but a handful of Democrats in the U.S. Senate and has prepared to fight or has fought close Senate elections every two years for a decade. “

Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey kiddies. We have a tactical bottleneck here. This guy goes down, it all falls.


7 posted on 09/21/2009 9:21:24 AM PDT by Free Vulcan (Resident Obama: Not a President, not a Citizen, living here but from somewhere else...)
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To: Da Coyote

Which is why switching to a national popular vote (in whatever guise) would be a curse quite apart from the framers’ intent in setting up the electoral college. All of a sudden a regional recount becomes a national recount.


8 posted on 09/21/2009 9:22:39 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Love me, love my cat.)
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To: mojito
When it comes to chicanery, no one in the pubbie party or representing a pubbie can hold a candle to a RAT.

The fact that the Bush team was able to pull it off in 2000 is all that more remarkable.

9 posted on 09/21/2009 9:24:09 AM PDT by evad (Spending money that we don't have on something that won't work for a problem that doesn't exist)
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To: mojito
“”The will of the electorate is going to come out one way or the other.”

Counting fraudulent ACORN “votes” of non-existent people, is not the “will if the people”.
It's called election theft, and fraud. This lawyer and Franken both should be in jail today.

10 posted on 09/21/2009 9:24:19 AM PDT by SmokingJoe
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To: albie

It needs to be well planned ahead of time.

One obvious thing: Recount methods should be instituted which cause minimal or no damage to ballots.


11 posted on 09/21/2009 9:25:15 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Love me, love my cat.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Don’t forget about King County, WA and the election that inserted (yet again) a dem gov. They kept recounting and recounting until they got the answer they wanted. Then the recounts ended.


12 posted on 09/21/2009 9:27:03 AM PDT by stubb
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To: mojito

>> In truth, not every break had gone to Franken, but so many had that it made the difference.

Anything goes when the elections are that close. The attorney should remind himself often that the voters are most responsible for the outcome.


13 posted on 09/21/2009 9:30:04 AM PDT by Gene Eric
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To: stubb

And they recounted more times in Pubbie areas, thus destroying more Pubbie ballots.


14 posted on 09/21/2009 9:31:19 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Love me, love my cat.)
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To: mojito

“Now it was clear: The Coleman side didn’t have clean copies of their own evidence. Campaign workers had marked up their original copies. The Franken team was under no legal obligation to provide their copies ? and Elias wasn’t about to; after all, this was Coleman’s case to put on.”

Huh? Why couldn’t Coleman’s side subpeona that “best evidence”? Something doesn’t make sense here...


15 posted on 09/21/2009 9:31:31 AM PDT by piytar (Zero pimping propaganda on all SRM channels at once: Big Brother in 2009! NRA Lifetime Member)
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To: evad
The fact that the Bush team was able to pull it off in 2000 is all that more remarkable.”

Yup.
Bush outmaneuvered the RATS every time. The loony left were angry with Bush, not because they really thought Bush “stole” the election. No. They hated Bush because Bush prevented the loony left from stealing the election in Florida.

16 posted on 09/21/2009 9:31:37 AM PDT by SmokingJoe
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To: SmokingJoe

Yup.


17 posted on 09/21/2009 9:34:17 AM PDT by piytar (Zero pimping propaganda on all SRM channels at once: Big Brother in 2009! NRA Lifetime Member)
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To: mojito

They lost because they never realized they were in an all out war.


18 posted on 09/21/2009 9:40:26 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
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To: albie

When we do, they scream bloody murder, like the 2000 presidential election they tried to steal.


19 posted on 09/21/2009 9:41:43 AM PDT by murron (Proud Marine Mom)
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To: mojito
I would have have thought that the Florida election in 2000 would have told everyone that the only fail way to go about this is to have a do-over if the tallies came within the margin of statistical error, or alternatively to have the legislature resume its Constitutional role of choosing the Senator.
20 posted on 09/21/2009 9:42:58 AM PDT by RobbyS (ECCE HOMO!)
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