Franken's lead recount lawyer heads to Massachusetts

Washington, D.C. lawyer Marc Elias, who led Al Franken's legal team in a bitter, bruising and ultimately victorious recount battle against incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman in 2008-9, has set up shop in Massachusetts in the event that a crucial special election held there today ends up too close to count.

Politico reports that Elias will head up a Democratic legal team ready for a fight for Martha Coakley against a similar squad of lawyers being assembled by her Republican challenger, Mark Brown, the Republican. The two candidates are competing to replace the late liberal Democratic icon Ted Kennedy, who died last year of cancer.

Republicans in Minnesota and around the country still haven't made peace with Franken's victory, and efforts continue to this day to discredit his win as a stolen election. The right wing news site NewsMax ran this headline this headline on Monday: Republican Fears of Stolen Election Grow in Massachusetts. The story quotes conservative Wall Street Journal columnist and Rush Limbaugh collaborator John Fund as stating flat out that, "Actual vote stealing will occur."

Meanwhile, others are reporting being handed ballots with Brown's name already filled in. More from The Plum Line:

"I was handed a ballot and when I went to fill it out I saw that the bubble next to Brown's name was already filled in," Volynskaya, who voted today in Brighton. Election workers, she added, promised her they "were going to look into how this happened."