Norm Coleman has done it again: He's filed a lawsuit at the state Supreme Court.

This newest lawsuit is an attempt to force the inclusion of the 650 rejected absentee ballots that his campaign wants put into the count, which the local election officials from around Minnesota have not included in the lists of ballots that they say were thrown out because of clerical errors. In short, Coleman is suing to include ballots that the county officials say were thrown out properly -- and which local media analyses say are from areas that Coleman swept in the election.

On a conference call with reporters just now, lead Franken lawyer Marc Elias ridiculed the Coleman campaign for having throughout this whole recount dismissed the idea that there were any significant number of wrongly-rejected ballots, only to have a very sharp change of position now that they're behind in the latest count by 49 votes.

"This is a campaign - the Coleman campaign, that is - is a campaign that is remarkably fond of do-overs," Elias said. "Their strategy seems to be to first object to something, then when that something happens to fight it. Then when it's clear that they're not going to prevail, to start over again."

And so the year 2008 ends with a lawsuit in the Minnesota Supreme Court. Don't think for a moment that there won't be more of them in 2009.

Late Update: Elias has released this statement:

"Yesterday, something very significant happened. The State Canvassing Board completed its review of challenged ballots voted unanimously that Al Franken was ahead by 49 votes. Today the Coleman campaign reacted by again trying to cast doubt on the outcome of this election by diverting attention into the courts and away from the counting of ballots. Their previous attempts to stop the counting of ballots were rebuffed by the State Canvassing Board and the Minnesota Supreme Court - and we believe this one will be as well. Minnesotans are ready to move forward and recognize a winner in this race."