They’re counting away. The latest:

By the end of the day Wednesday, the mandatory statewide recount — triggered when the Election Day results gave Coleman a lead of less than 0.5 percent — slashed Franken’s deficit from 215 votes to 174, with about 18 percent of the ballots having been reviewed. The figures represent a compilation of recount data reported to the secretary of state and gathered by the Star Tribune [...]

In Duluth today, that advantage further shank [...]

With 14 of the 18 “Eagle” [scanning machine] precincts counted through this morning, Franken had gained 59 to Coleman’s 25, a net gain of 34 for Franken from the previously uncounted “arrow” votes.

According to the Star-Tribune, which has a cool little map tracking vote changes and challenged ballots by county, the Coleman lead is down to 163 votes with 24% reporting.

So the deficit is coming down as the votes are counted. When they’re finished, they’ll turn their attention to the challenged ballots, like this one invalidated as an overvote, but challenged by the Franken campaign since the intent is clearly for Franken:

As obvious as this one might be, word is that most challenges are pretty frivolous. And given that the Coleman campaign is being more aggressive in challenging ballots (having challenged 240 to Franken’s 172), that might be yet another source for vote gains during this process.

Meanwhile, MN Publius has an update from the Franken campaign on yesterday’s count:

* 26.5% of the ballots were hand-counted - and the ballots that were hand-counted represented a sample that disproportionately consisted of Coleman votes by a 3.3% margin. In other words, the first ballots counted tended to be from redder piles. * In Hennepin County (Minneapolis), 29.5% of ballots were counted. Among those ballots, Franken received only 49% of the two-way vote on Election Night, but netted 16 votes in the recount. In the portion of Hennepin County not yet counted, Franken received 62% of the two-way vote on Election Night. * In Ramsey County (St. Paul), 17% of the vote has been recounted, with Franken netting 26 votes. In the portion of Ramsey County not yet counted, Franken received 59% of the two-way vote on Election Night. * In St. Louis County (Duluth), 16% of the vote has been recounted, with Franken netting 41 votes. In the portion of St. Louis County not yet counted, Franken received 62% of the two-way vote on Election Night.

The Franken campaign has different numbers than those officially released since they have observers tallying the votes as they are counted. Throw in the state’s official numbers, and all these competing numbers create a great deal of confusion. So for now, all that is important is that the deficit is narrowing, and that if this rate holds (no guarantee, of course), then Franken will narrowly win the race.

Read the original post:
MN-Sen: Getting closer still