Minnesota's state Canvassing Board
refused the Franken campaign's request to count rejected
absentee ballots in the Senate race, but -- and this is key --
they did not rule on the merits of his claim. They only said that
it was a matter to be decided by the courts. So in other words,
no matter what the final recount numbers show next week, we'll
still have a protracted legal fight over these absentee ballots,
and that's not even taking into account the thousands of
challenged ballots by both campaigns that still need to be ruled
on by the Canvassing Board.