Franken Lawyer Grills Election Official In GOP Town

[babylonsister]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/franken-lawyer-grills-election-official-in-gop-leaning-town.php

Franken Lawyer Grills Election Official In GOP Town
By Eric Kleefeld - February 13, 2009, 1:25PM



In the Minnesota election trial today, Franken lawyer Kevin Hamilton appears to be laying out a case that election officials have applied inconsistent standards in how they treated absentee ballots -- exactly the sort of case Norm Coleman has made.

The rub: The case is that a local election official in a Republican area has been especially strict with ballots the Franken camp wants included, and permissive for Coleman.

Over the last two days the court has been interviewing Sandy Engdahl, the elections manager for the GOP-leaning Minneapolis suburb of Plymouth. Yesterday, Engdahl in many cases agreed with Coleman lawyer Joe Friedberg that some ballots had been improperly rejected. She even went further and volunteered that over the last few days she'd found 11 more envelopes that ought to be included, which weren't ruled as such during the review of rejected ballots this past December.

Then it was Franken lawyer Kevin Hamilton's turn.

Hamilton went over those 11 new ballots with Engdahl, along with other ballots that had been offered by Friedberg, and reviewed problems that do actually exist on those votes. In one case Engdahl bluntly said: "Yes, I stand corrected with that."

Hamilton then took a trip back in time to the absentee-ballot review in December. The Franken campaign had submitted to Plymouth the cases of three voters who were asking for their ballots to be included. Engdahl had rejected all three at the time.

snip//

One other thing worth pointing out: During her entire cross-examination so far with Hamilton, Engdahl has appeared to be very uncomfortable.

[Ian David]

1. Al should have listened to Randi. n/t

[babylonsister]

2. What did she say? I don't listen. nt

[edhopper]

3. I think it was

"F^%k You Hilary!"