It's odd to hear judges faulted for taking the law too seriously. But that, in a nutshell, seems to be the complaint Norm Coleman's attorneys had about Tuesday's order by the three-judge panel in Coleman's legal contest of Al Franken's 225-vote lead in their U.S. Senate race. The judges called for the examination, and possible counting, of 400 additional absentee ballots on April 7, more than five months after the Nov. 4 election that ended in a near-draw.

The judges' order adheres closely to Minnesota's election law as it describes how they winnowed nearly 11,000 as-yet-unopened absentee ballots -- all found wanting by precinct officials on Nov. 4 -- to just 400 that might have been rejected in error. At the heart of the judges' argument is that in Minnesota, voting by absentee ballot is considered more a privilege than a right. Previous courts have ruled that the Legislature can set procedures and conditions for absentee voting; it has, in considerable detail.

Coleman argues, in essence, that because those procedures may not have been followed to the letter in every county and precinct, the three judges ought to be lenient in applying them now. The judges have exhibited no sympathy for that argument. Tuesday's order might be described as a "strict construction" of state election law -- a judicial mindset that in other contexts wins Republican praise.

Election law scholar Edward Foley of Ohio State University noted that Tuesday's order is not the final word from this panel. A formal ruling in the case will likely follow the ballot counting exercise the court set for next Tuesday. Foley said that for the sake of "the parties and the process," he hopes the judges' ruling will directly respond to Coleman's argument about equal treatment of voters. It's that argument that is expected to form the basis of an appeal to the state Supreme Court, should Coleman remain behind in the count after more ballots are opened next week.

Understandably, Minnesotans don't like the duration of this contest. Many won't like the outcome. But they can take solace in how thorough and painstaking the process has been to identify every legally cast ballot, and count it.

It's notable that in choosing to examine 400 more ballots, the court is in the same numerical ballpark that county election officials were in during the November-December recount. They said then that they believed about 1,350 ballots had been rejected in error. The canvassing board, hampered by a state Supreme Court ruling that said both of the two campaigns had to agree before a ballot could be opened and counted, was only able to open 933 of those ballots. Allowing the local election officials to decide which ballots had been mistakenly handled on election night, without the campaigns' interference, might have expedited this protracted process.