Recount: Coleman's lead shrinks in Senate showdown

The Minnesota Secretary of State's office has released the first numbers of the state-mandated U.S. Senate recount and the figures show Republican Senator Norm Coleman's lead shrinking.

 Democratic challenger Al Franken has gained 43 votes.

There were 221 challenged ballots. 115 challenged by the Coleman campaign and 106 by the Franken campaign.

Coleman still holds a 181 vote lead over Franken, but before Wednesday night it was a 215 vote margin.

 Coleman is ahead with 43 percent of the vote, Al Franken has 40 percent.

The recounted number of votes for Norm Coleman was 195,638, which is 70 votes less than on election day.

Workers recounted 180,923 voters for Al Franken, which is 27 less than reported on November 4th.

Election officials began their review of nearly 2.9 million ballots under intense scrutiny from Coleman and Franken. With national Democrats within striking distance of a filibuster-proof majority, the stakes are high.

In Minneapolis, several representatives from each campaign met in a circle before the counting began and shook each others' hands, like basketball captains.

 Coleman's volunteers were looking for ballots "where voter intent is unclear," said Pat Shortridge, the lead Coleman volunteer in Minneapolis. A Franken campaign spokeswoman said his volunteers had the same mission.

At the main Ramsey County tally site in St. Paul, county elections director Joe Mansky laid out the task and the ground rules before the sorting began: 30,000 ballots to count each day, or one every five seconds for each counter. No one but county election employees or election judges may touch the ballots. No food or drink, no talking.

The Minnesota recount is required under state law because the votes cast for Coleman and Franken differed by less than one-half of 1 percent. The incumbent Coleman's 215-vote lead at the outset of the recount translates to eight-thousandths of a point.

Mansky said counting would take place six hours a day. "There is a limited amount of time that you can count or pile ballots without getting a little crazy," he said.

 Once the counting began, things got tedious pretty fast. Workers plowed through thick stacks of ballots, sorting them into a series of piles.

 For most ballots, the voter's intention was indisputable.

But at the main counting sites in both Minneapolis and St. Paul, the campaign observers seemed to err on the side of challenging lots of ballots -- most citing "distinguishing marks," a term in state law that was being applied to ballots with even the slightest blemish.

"I didn't see any ballot here today that I suspect the state canvassing board would uphold a challenge to. Not one," Mansky said.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, stopping to greet recount workers in Ramsey County, said he expected the number of challenged ballots forwarded to the canvassing board would be "very small."

 Still, the challenge process sparked a few minutes of confusion at the Minneapolis site, a city-owned warehouse where ballots from all of the city's 131 precincts were counted. Officials there realized not long after starting that the campaigns could issue a challenge even if a distinguishing mark fell on the other side of the ballot.

"We started over. Fortunately we weren't far into it," Reichert said.

 With the teams of campaign volunteers and a throng of reporters and cameramen, Reichert was forced several times to plead for quiet and calm.

 "There's such a din in here. It's hard for the judges to concentrate," she told the assembled group at one point.

 A volunteer observer for Coleman in Ramsey County was asked to step out of the recount room when he became loud while raising questions about the total number of votes being counted from one box; nearby election officials said he was distracting them. He later returned to the room.

Things proceeded much more smoothly in tiny Norman County in western Minnesota, where workers finished recounting their ballots by 12:45 p.m. The final tally was unchanged from the first count: Franken 1,576, Coleman 1,334.

 "I'm tickled pink that it's over," said County Auditor Rick Munter.

Ballot judge Diane Littlefield of Fertile said helping with the recount made her feel like part of history, "as corny as it sounds."

More immediate than the history books, Minnesota's race looms large in the broader Washington, D.C., power struggle. Depending on another undecided contest in Georgia, the Minnesota outcome could determine if Democrats attain a 60-seat majority that would enable them to overcome Republican filibusters.

 The race grew in significance Tuesday when Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in Senate history, narrowly lost his re-election bid in Alaska. His defeat by Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich gives Democrats 58 seats, when two independents who align with Democrats are included.

In all, 49 of 107 recount sites -- some county, and some city -- began their work on Wednesday. Each site is required to finish their work and report by Dec. 5; a state canvassing board will take up their results, and make rulings on disputed ballots, beginning Dec. 16. Litigation could drag a final resolution well into 2009.

Both campaigns were warning their supporters to not read too much into updated recount numbers that are released at the end of each day; with the race so close, it's likely the lead could fluctuate between Franken and Coleman.

"It's sort of like watching the stock market these days," said Fritz Knaak, a lawyer representing Coleman in the recount. "It's going to go up, it's going to go down."

 Secretary of State Ritchie said his office's website would be updated nightly at 8:00 to reflect the day's results.

 As of 8:00 Wednesday evening, results for Hennepin County showed only 1 percent of ballots had been recounted. Because the larger cities in Hennepin are in charge of their own recounts, the county was waiting for those cities to finish before reporting results to the secretary of state.

In Ramsey County, 15.28 percent of all votes were recounted Wednesday. Coleman lost two votes from his Election-Night tally, and Franken gained 11. Only one ballot was challenged -- a vote for Franken challenged by Coleman.

 In Washignton County, where 33.49 percent of votes were recounted, Coleman lost nine and Franken lost 20. There were 18 challenges; 12 of them were Franken votes challenged by Coleman.

 In St. Louis County, almost 16 percent of votes were recounted Wednesday. Coleman gained one, and Franken gained 24. There were 48 challenges; 31 were Franken votes challenged by the Coleman campaign.

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