Minnesota Recount: Hand Count Ends, Coleman Leads By 687 Votes
Posted Dec 05, 2008 at 6:57 PM
Maurice Berger, Political Director, PollTrack
The Minnesota US Senate hand recount came to an end this afternoon, with Coleman taking an official lead of 687 votes. But as the New York Times notes, the race is not over: "Officials continued to search for 133 ballots missing from one Minneapolis precinct. With all except those ballots tallied from the state’s 87 counties, Senator Norm Coleman, the Republican incumbent, was leading Al Franken, the former comedian and a Democrat, by a margin of 687 votes, the secretary of state’s office said Friday afternoon. The race could easily shift later this month, though, once a state canvassing board begins examining some 5,300 ballots still in question — ballots for which either the Coleman or the Franken campaign has challenged the voter’s true intent." Still, PollTrack believes the dynamics of the three counts, all ending with Coleman in the lead, favor the Republican incumbent.
