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Edward B. Foley
Free & Fair is a collection of writings by Edward B. Foley, one of the nation's preeminent experts on election law.

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Minnesota contest court hears arguments over Franken's motion to dismiss

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March 6, 2009

The contest court today heard arguments from Coleman and Franken over Coleman's motion to invalidate Rule 9 from the recount and Franken's motion to dismiss.  Fanken's attorney Marc Elias recited many of the details from the Franken motion in alleging that Coleman has not met its burden of submitting the evidence required for the court to find that rejected ballots were legally cast.  Coleman attorney James Langdon replied more generally by saying that he believed the Coleman team had shown by a preponderance of the evidence that Coleman's claims are valid.  Langdon mentioned that they await the court's decision on Coleman's motion to apply the Feb. 13 order to all absentee ballots.  The judges did not ask many questions but Judge Reilly did say that she thought the ballots had been looked at three times now suggesting that she might have reservations about accepting Langdon's argument that the counting standard was unequally applied such that an equal protection violation exists.  Judge Marben asked Langdon if he accepted the numbers put forth in Franken's motion, which says the remaining ballots at issue number only 1400+ and that, of those, Coleman has put forth the necessary pieces of evidence for only a very small number of ballots to be considered by the court for inclusion.  Langdon did not accept the Franken numbers and suggested there are about 1725 ballots still in the "universe" for consideration by this court.