Senate recount: The contest
MONDAY'S EVENTS
• The trial portion of Norm Coleman's lawsuit over the Minnesota U.S. Senate recount began in St. Paul. Attorneys for Republican Coleman and DFLer Al Franken presented opening arguments.
• Coleman attorney Joe Friedberg called for the presiding three-judge panel to examine up to 5,000 rejected absentee ballots to determine whether they should be accepted and included in the vote totals. He said the absentee ballots are likely to determine the winner of the race, in which Franken held a 225-vote lead after the recount.
• Franken attorneys objected that in some cases copies of the rejected absentee ballot envelopes had been marked by campaign workers or inaccurately copied. The judicial panel instructed the Coleman campaign to subpoena from local election officials the original versions of the rejected absentee ballots that it wants reviewed.
ON HAND
• Coleman attended the start of the trial. Franken was not there.
UP NEXT
• The trial continues today, starting at 9 a.m.
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