They held a hearing on a motion for summary judgment today in the Al Franken-Norm Coleman recount scuffle.

The idea is for the two parties to come to some agreements on facts that are not in “material dispute.” The concept is to help the judges narrow the scope of a trial, such as the election contest trial that’s set to start Monday at 1 p.m.

Long story short: The sides agreed on virtually nothing when it came to key facts.

Surprise!

Coleman’s team wanted Franken’s side to agree to recount up to about 4,500 previously rejected absentee ballots. The Coleman team said today it’s found numerous ballots in recent days that should be counted.

James Langdon, Coleman’s lawyer, said there has been “widespread, pervasive, inconsistent application of the standard” in counting absentee ballots.

This goes to the critical issue of “equal protection” of all voters. If the judges believe that different voters’ ballots were handled differently from others, that could raise a constitutional issue.

And, Langdon said, “The universe [of potential ballots to examine] isn’t done yet.”

That is, the number of ballots Coleman wants examined could grow. Indeed, the Coleman side unveiled nearly 40 new self-defined categories of ways in which they say absentee ballots were rejected statewide by elections officials. They want the court to consider all of the new categories, not only the four statutory reasons to reject absentee ballots.

As he listened to Langdon, Franken lawyer Marc Elias’ jaw was open, as if he were watching a high-wire act between the IDS Building and the Wells Fargo Center in downtown Minneapolis.

Finally, Elias rose to state: “I’m somewhat speechless and amazed … While I have read much of death-bed conversions, this is quite dramatic in its completeness.”

And then Elias went through a lengthy historical trip down memory lane on the Coleman side’s back-and-forth position on absentee ballots since early November.

On other matters in dispute – such as the Coleman charge that there’s been alleged double-counting of ballots in some precincts or that missing ballots from Minneapolis shouldn’t be counted – Franken’s lawyers differed.
It’s clear those matters will be key parts of the trial.

One significant ruling was issued today by the three-judge panel. Coleman lost. His lawyers sought a court order to send three inspectors to 86 precincts statewide to check voter rolls and ballots to see if votes were double-counted.

The judges ruled that evidence could be gathered in other ways and that there wasn’t time before the start of the trial Monday to carry out such inspections.

Elias called the decision “a stinging defeat” for Coleman. It was a jab at Coleman’s lawyer/spokesman Ben Ginsberg, who just Thursday called a ruling against Franken “a stinging defeat.”

The way the hearing went today, there’s going to be a whole lot of stinging going on at the Minnesota Judicial Center over the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, the Coleman campaign filed a motion late today seeking to convert a Franken-backed voters' lawsuit into a class action suit.

Sixty-four voters have sued to have their absentee ballots counted. Coleman's lawyers want all 11,000 rejected absentee voters to be allowed to join that case.