Recount wraps up

Talk about it

ST. PAUL — Minnesotans are out of luck if they thought completion of the historic U.S. Senate recount would bring about a tidy end to the race.

Most election officials on Friday breathed a sigh of relief as nearly all of the 2.9 million ballots had been recounted by hand, giving Sen. Norm Coleman a 192-vote edge over Democrat Al Franken.

That slim lead — which narrowed from Coleman’s 215-vote lead before the recount — is based on comparing each precinct’s results from the initial ballot tally with the recount results.

In the raw vote total reported Friday, Coleman had 1,208,344 votes to Franken’s 1,207,657.

But three key factors cloud the tally and Coleman’s apparent lead — and ensure the race will remain undecided for at least two more weeks.

The ballots in all but one of Minnesota’s 4,130 precincts were counted and reported by 1:28 p.m. Friday, but the recount deadline was extended in a Minneapolis precinct where 133 ballots were reported missing. That left the recount incomplete.

The outcome also rests on the campaigns’ remaining 5,372 ballot challenges and the possibility another pile of ballots — absentee votes improperly rejected by election workers – still will be counted.

Still, nearly finishing Minnesota’s first major hand recount since 1962 is a big step, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said.

“The hardest part — counting 3 million ballots under the glare of 1,000 klieg lights — that’s the hardest part and it’s over,” he told reporters minutes after his office reported 99.9 percent of ballots were recounted.

There are challenges ahead, Ritchie said. He urged the campaigns to withdraw “a significant number of the frivolous challenges that they’ve made.” The state Canvassing Board — which includes Ritchie and four judges – must examine all challenged ballots. The board is scheduled to meet for up to four days beginning Dec. 16 for that process.

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