Two Newspaper Surveys Show Franken Gains in Minnesota Recount

The Star-Tribune reported today that it "performed its own analysis of the challenged ballots by relying on a virtual 'canvassing board' of more than 26,000 readers who examined at least some of them. There appeared to be widespread consensus that Franken won slightly more disputes than Coleman, enough to theoretically erase the incumbent's narrow lead by late Monday."

The newspaper published copies of the challenged ballots online and asked readers to analyze and decide how each ballot should be counted. It's unclear whether the process was infected by partisans in Franken's camp, but the report does appear to corroborate an Associated Press count of challenged ballots.

AP said it "found that among challenged ballots that easily could be assigned, Franken netted 200 more votes than Coleman."

The campaigns have withdrawn thousands of challenges, and now there appears to be under 1,500 ballots for the state Canvassing Board to review to determine voter intent. Coleman currently leads by 188 votes.

There is no official word yet on how the withdrawn challenged ballots break for either candidate.

The Canvassing Board began meeting at 12 noon CT to begin reviewing the remaining challenged ballots, and will start by reviewing the roughly 500 ballots challenged by the Franken campaign. When those are completed, the Board will review Coleman's challenges.

The Star Tribune also reports that [Coleman attorney Fritz Knaak] "said campaign officials believe 'a couple of hundred' votes from locations he didn't specify were mistakenly counted twice on Election Night. Local elected officials created those duplicates after originals were misfed or jammed into voting machines, he said."

Also, still to be resolved is the question on counting absentee ballots that were improperly rejected. The Minnesota Supreme Court will hear arguments on this issue Wednesday.