From the National Post...
Al Franken likely victor in contentious Minnesota Senate recount
Reuters is reporting that Democrat Al Franken will be declared the winner of the tight U.S. Senate contest in Minnesota, emerging from a ballot recount with a slim margin over Republican Norm Coleman, state officials said on Sunday.
“At the moment, Franken has a 225-vote lead,” after the weekend counting of what were deemed the last uncounted absentee ballots, said Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a Democrat who oversaw the process.
Ritchie said unless the supreme court acts on Coleman’s request and orders more ballots to be counted, he will reconvene the state’s Canvassing Board on Monday to certify Franken as the winner of the Nov. 4 contest.
As the Minneapolis Star Tribune writes, Coleman isn't going away quietly.
Coleman, who led Franken on election night, hasn't ruled out a lawsuit challenging the results, claiming there were irregularities that gave Franken an unfair advantage. The Coleman campaign also has a petition pending before the state Supreme Court to include 650 ballots that it says were improperly rejected but not forwarded by local officials to St. Paul for counting.
"We are prepared to go forward and take whatever legal action is necessary to ... remedy this artificial lead that we believe is being shown now for the Franken campaign," Recount attorney Fritz Knaak said.
Franken campaign spokesman Andy Barr said in an e-mail Sunday: "In terms of future planning, we're taking it one step at a time. The next step is the canvass board's meeting tomorrow, where we have every expectation they will declare that Al won the election."
As MSNBC pulled out: "Not surprisingly, Chuck Schumer wants Franken seated, now. And the Wall Street Journal editorial page thinks Franken is the illegitimate winner."
Reuters writes that the recount of some 2.4 million votes cast for the pair has swung back and forth over several weeks. Coleman initially held the edge, but his narrow victory margin necessitated the recount under state law.
The Canvassing Board sifted through hundreds of ballots contested by the two campaigns.
"The recount has been done so precisely, and so transparently," it would be difficult to envision a challenge succeeding, Ritchie said.
But the Washington Post reports that the process itself may come under challenge:
Photo: Cory Ryan/Getty ImagesAl Franken is a well-known satirist who wrote for and starred on "Saturday Night Live," and more recently hosted a liberal radio show before running for the Senate."The Coleman team has laid the groundwork for a real, substantive challenge in front of the Minnesota Supreme Court," said Vin Weber, a former member of Congress from Minnesota and now a lobbyist in Washington. "The race is still a ways from being over."
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