In a conference call with reporters just now, the Franken campaign rolled out their organized response to Norm Coleman's lawsuit to overturn the election result in the Minnesota Senate race, which has bottled up the election result in court: Not only is the lawsuit baseless, but they believe the Governor and the Secretary of State are legally required to issue them a certificate of election today.

Lead Franken lawyer Marc Elias announced that the campaign is sending a letter to Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Sec. of State Mark Ritchie, pointing to federal and state laws that they believe require Pawlenty and Ritchie to issue the certificate, contrary to the conventional wisdom that has held that the certificate can't be issued until after Coleman's lawsuit is dealt with. Not so, says the Franken camp -- Minnesota should have two senators, and the winner of the election is entitled to his certificate.

When a reporter asked if the Franken campaign could go to court over this to force the issuing of a certificate, Elias didn't rule it out. "We don't take any options of the table," Elias said, "and are eager to have Senator-elect Franken receive the certificate that he is entitled to."

Elias made clear that issuing a certificate would not cut off Coleman's legal right to contest the election in court -- it would simply force the seating of Al Franken in the interim. But as for the lawsuit itself, Elias said it was "riddled with error," and that the campaign was filing a motion to dismiss.

Assuming the lawsuit does go to trial, Elias also showed that the Franken people have their own number of issues that they can push in their favor. For example, they will seek the counting of improperly-rejected absentee ballot envelopes that the Coleman campaign vetoed during the sorting process, and they are also giving their support to a lawsuit to be filed today by absentee voters seeking to get their ballots counted.