The state Canvassing Board will begin to review challenged
ballots today in the Minnesota Senate race. All along, I've been
cautioning that Norm Coleman's often cited 192-vote lead may have
been overstated, because he challenged more ballots than Franken.
Given that most of these challenges have been ruled on by local
election officials once, I anticipate the Board will throw out an
overwhelming majority of challenges and because Coleman has made
more challenges, he's likely to lose more of them, and Franken is
likely to make gains. In recent days, the
Associated Press and the
Star Tribune have released the results of their reviews,
which anticipate Coleman's lead being erased once the Canvassing
Board rules on the challenged ballots (the Star Tribune
analysis was done by its readers, and thus especially susceptible
to partisan manipulation). Obviously, there will be a lot more
twists and turns and legal moves down the road, and it's hard to
really predict how this will all turn out, but it now seems that
Franken has a very plausible path to victory once you factor in
the challenged ballots, and potential gains from rejected
absentee ballots.