I’ve avoided trying to properly cover the ongoing count to determine the winner of the Senate seat in Minnesota, between Republican Senator Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken. The best place to follow it all has been FiveThirtyEight.com.
In the last day the Canvassing Board have been resolving challenges, and the trend seems to be towards a significant advantage for Al Franken. FiveThirty Eight predicts Franken leading by 251 votes at the end of the count. I’m still not sure how long this is going on for, but Franken has to now be considered the favourite.
However, the Canvassing Board must now consider 5000 withdrawn challenges on ballots and restore the ballots to their original pile. As Franken withdrew about 300 more challenges than Coleman, you would expect this would reduce the margin down to a handful of votes either way.
