Breaking: Coleman's lead is getting smaller!!!

[thewiseguy]

He now leads Franken by 120 votes. 64% of the votes have been recounted.

Earlier today Coleman had increased his lead to 162 but Franken is once again coming back!

http://ww2.startribune.com/news/metro/elections/returns/2008/recount/msenco.html

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. Nail Biter

I was hoping for it to be almost even today.

Both must be sweating bullets. Thanks for the update.

[tabatha]

2. Both have about 800 contested ballots - more than the difference.

[Divine Discontent]

3. hmm that's good that it's heading back to Franken

however, the fact it went up to 164 sucks. I was hoping before the official review of all the ballots up for official review that's coming, that Franken would take a small lead. I guess there's still hope. I just think if he gets a lead, he won't lose it after they do that review - because Coleman's people supposedly were very hard on good ballots that were for Al, so I'm hoping it gets down to a few dozen at the most - GO AL!

Many different Yes We Did items in the Obama/Biden section www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable

[Patsy Stone]

4. And the 1600+ challenged ballots

are those included in the count (already challenged and decided)? Or are those to be determined later?

And, what of the absentee ballots?

Go, Al!

[wellstone dem]

6. Absentee ballots are included in the count, challenged votes are not so

if the challenges are not upheld, then the votes will go back to the opposing party's camp (except for the one's that go to "other". this means that right now Coleman is 120 votes ahead, and the Franken campaign has challenged 27 more votes than Coleman. so you need to add those votes to Coleman's total. (This is being very conservative.) So to be comfortable, we need to pick up 147 more votes or keep the vote count the same and see Coleman go ahead in the challenges.

[Patsy Stone]

8. Thanks for that explanation.

Didn't Franken win a case to have the disqualified absentee ballots examined? Or am I misremembering?

[mitchtv]

9. Franken got the right of acess to the names

of the rejected absentee ballots.

[wellstone dem]

10. He did win to get information, but the counting of those

ballots has not yet been decided. These are the absentee ballots that were disqualified from being counted. Some because they were late, but most because of failure to abide by rules. The most questionable disqualifications are the one's where lay election judges decide that a signature doesn't match the signature on the election roll.

Franken is going to have to go to court to get these counted. I have no idea how many of these are state wide. (He only one access for Ramsey County--St. Paul, but the ruling might be applied statewide.)

[originalpckelly]

5. Is it cold up in Minnesota or what?

[wellstone dem]

7. it was 5 degrees last night here, but tomorrow should get up to

38.