OHIO STATE JOURNAL ON DISPUTE RESOLUTION [Vol. 27:2 2012) out to the campaigns to hammer out basic procedural issues.131 He convened a conference call with the Director of Elections Gary Poser, an attorney from the Minnesota Attorney General's Office, and lawyers representing the two campaigns. According to Poser, the OSS circulated a document to both campaigns prior to the call that laid out the basic procedural rules for the recount (a document in final draft titled the Recount Plan).l32 The draft Recount Plan drew in part from procedures used in prior Minnesota recounts. The stated purpose of the call was to review the draft Recount Plan and answer any process questions or concerns the campaigns might have. According to Director Poser, right at the start of the call, one of the campaigns circulated a redlined version of the document indicating its desired changes. The other side had not had an opportunity to review this redlined document (nor had Secretary Ritchie, the Director of Elections, or the AG's office). Secretary Ritchie elected to give participants ten minutes to read through the redlined changes. According to Poser, the redlining was not heavy-handed. Many of the comments were small matters such as whether Coleman should be referred to as "Senator Coleman" or whether Franken should be referred to as "Mr. Franken.''133 Although some of the matters handled on the call were trivial, a few of the issues discussed, namely the issue of duplicate ballots discussed below, turned out to be quite significant. How closely did the conference call parallel a mediated process? Secretary Ritchie, holding himself out as a neutral party, convened the call to resolve the contours of a set of procedural issues he knew would be contentious between two parties passionately opposed. The call was intended to educate the parties about the draft Recount Plan, and also to try and work out any differences in advance to avoid disputes down the road. The call was in many ways a delicate mediated dance. As Secretary Ritchie described it, "we wanted to settle on process solutions that would create a balance of administrability, fairness, and agreement from the campaigns. We knew if either campaign was sufficiently dissatisfied with the result, we would end up in court." 134 131 Weiner, supra note 62, at 58 ("[a]fter a series of meetings and conference calls between both campaigns and Ritchie's office, sixteen ground rules were established for the recount."). 132 The third-party candidate, Dean Barkley, was invited to participate on the call but chose not to. Telephone Interview with Gary Poser, Dir. of Elections, State of Minn. (May 26, 2011 ). 133 Ultimately the document refers to the candidates by their last name only. A copy of the fmal Recount Plan available at http://www.sos.state.rnn.us/index.aspx?page=1405. 134 Interview with Sec'y Ritchie, supra note 120. 358 HeinOnline -- 27 Ohio St. J. on Disp. Resol. 358 2012