MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) - Republican Norm Coleman's attorneys Monday sent a letter to the three judges overseeing the election trial asking them to reconsider their game-changing ruling from Friday that put significant limits on the types of rejected absentee ballots they want examined.
The judges on Friday outlined about a dozen categories of ballots that should not be counted because they said those categories of ballots were not legally cast under Minnesota law. Those included ballots in which signatures didn't match, those submitted by non-registered voters or those inside a return envelope not signed by the voter.
But Coleman, who is seeking to add more rejected ballots to the recount of his November 4 race with Democrat Al Franken for a U.S. Senate seat, argued that not including all of about 4,800 ballots he wants re-examined was a matter of equal protection.
In their letter sent to the court Monday, Coleman's team is arguing that "likely thousands" of the ballots that had been sifted through during the recount process could have fallen under these now-taboo categories.
"Without a remedy, we will be faced with a widespread equal protection problem that would not only violate the law, but create Constitutional legal issues that would only delay this process further," Coleman attorney Ben Ginsberg said.
The court also ruled that absentee ballots dropped off on election day and absentee ballot applications that were not signed would not be reconsidered.
After these new guidelines defining legitimate ballots, Coleman's attorneys estimated that around 3,300 ballots might be eligible for re-examination.
There is no word on when the court could issue another order on this, if they decide to at all.
The state's hand recount completed in early January and gave Democrat Al Franken a lead of 225 votes. The trial moved into its fourth week of proceedings on Monday.
From CNN Politics
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Forget it Coleman, ACORN bought this election and wants to put their puppet in the Senate.
hey norm its time to move on. YOU LOST!!!!
SORE LOSER!
GET OVER IT!
PUT YOUR COUNTRY FIRST COLEMAN!
CHANGE NEEDS ANOTHER SEN. AND YOUR NOT HIM YOU CRY BABY!
ENOUGH already Coleman. You are sounding like another John MCain broken record!!! Save it. YOU LOST buddy, do you want us to draw you a picture?
Jesus... you lost. Let's move on and stop all this foolishness, we've wasted enough time on it as it is.
Shouldn't Norm be getting ready for his impending prosecution?
Coleman wants to count forged ballots. Why are we not suprised.
I can't wait for Franken to be sworn in, and have this clown fade into obscurity.
GOD!! Will this ever end???????????
Funny – all the libs chiding Coleman to "go away" are the same one's saying Bush stole the election!
Hypocrites!
Back of the line, Norm.
Coleman, the Curtains have fallen. It's time to vacate the THEATER.
Doesn't Norm Coleman have any shame
No, thats ok you are the looser and there are already a bunch of NO voting Republicans in DC. We want Happy, Shinny, People, People that can look straight into the mirror and say, I am good enough, I am smart enough, I am Al enough!
Coleman go away
Give it up, Coleman. You lost.
Coleman...please leave....Minnesotans dont want you...You lost – take it like a man.
Let's see how long and how much more money they can waste on this "re-count".
With a legal ruling against Coleman... he really only has two choices... to take his challenge all the way... and cost his state more tax payer dollars... or accept defeat...
I say... quit wasting his state's time... at this point, his state only has one Senator representing them... and that is handicapping them at a crucial time.
A senator telling the state supreme court what to do. Now that is why the people voted him out.
What is the democratic response for excluding votes now? You argued against this practice with Florida. This is same thing Gore tried to do by cherry picking only democratic areas in Florida for a recount. The Bush team argued for a full state recount. This is why we need to have electronic voting and get off these paper ballots. We are a technologically advanced society. The courts should not be in the business of deciding elections.
What is the democratic response for excluding votes now? You argued against this practice with Florida. This is same thing Gore tried to do by cherry picking only democratic areas in Florida for a recount. The Bush team argued for a full state recount. This is why we need to have electronic voting and get off these paper ballots. We are a technologically advanced society. The courts should not be in the business of deciding elections.
I think the best comment has already been noted many times....Coleman has lost to Ventura and Franken. If that just isn't enough to slink away, I don't know what is...
What I don't understand is how Coleman can claim that the ballots were not treated equally. When the absentee ballots were re-examined, weren't both candidates allowed to object to ballots which were then not counted? It would seem, then, that the Coleman team is just as guilty of not treating the ballots equally if some of those they did not reject are similar to some of those that they did. This would make it appear that he was less likely to reject improper ballots in precincts where he thought it may benefit him, but now that he needs more votes he is claiming that the ballots weren't treated equally. Each absentee ballot was treated equally to determine if it was legally cast – examined by the elections official and by someone for each candidate.
At what point during this whole circus of a election do you decide it's not worth it and may be its time to concede? Like, I can understand if the fight is for the presidency (and even in a case like that, Al Gore decided to concede shortly afterwards)..but for the US Senate? How much power is really in that seat..especially for MN? This is now approx 4 months fwd the election now Coleman. Move on
The court needs to get rid of these loser and send him packing.
The whole strategy behind this is simply to help continued republican obstructionism to cleaning up the utter disasters the republicans created.
Coleman knows he lost. Everyone knows. He is just helping his party (and harming the nation) by his strategy of DELAY. Every Senate votre is precious as Republicans seek a unified front to obstruct.
They want the United States to FAIL so that they have a chance to come back in the next election and claim this mess is Obama's fault.
Republicans = Scumbags.
What ever happened to Sen. Coleman's legal issues?