| | Franken campaign says recount margin down to 50 votes
 Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken's campaign says he trails Republican incumbent Norm Coleman by just 50 votes as the recount of ballots in Minnesota nears its conclusion.
Marc Elias, the Franken campaign's lead attorney, told reporters the margin was based on tallies from observers in recount locations. Elias also said he's optimistic at the prospects to have some of the more than 9,000 rejected absentee ballots re-added to the count as elections officials begin sorting through the ballots based on the reason they were rejected.
Whatever happens, Elias vowed to fight on "until every vote has been fairly and accurately counted," even if that means asking the US Senate to intervene. Of the rejected absentee ballots, Elias estimate as many as 1,000 represent legitimate votes that should be counted.
"Whether that happens at the county level, before the canvassing board, in the courts or before the United States Senate, we are more confident than ever that will happen," he said.
While the 50-vote tally separating the candidates was far narrower than estimates from local newspapers, Elias acknowleged, he said it sought to correct for "frivolous" ballot challenges from Coleman's team.
The two campaigns have challenged about 6,000 ballots of more than 2.4 million cast; Coleman's campaign is challenging about 200 more than Franken. The Minneapolis Star Tribune estimates that Coleman is leading by a wider margin than Elias said. The paper put the gap between the two at 340 votes Tuesday afternoon.
Elias said that accounting was inaccurate because it excluded all challenged ballots, even those where a voter's intention was clear. Franken's campaign compiled its tally based on the pre-challenge ruling from non-partisan judges at the recount sites.
"If the judge calls it for Coleman, we treat it as a Coleman ballot even though we have challenged it," he said.
"We know that the Coleman campaign has challenged far more Franken ballots than we have challenged Coleman ballots," he continued, accusing the rival campaign of "driving down the Franken number."
Regarding the rejected absentee ballots, Elias cheered the decision to begin sorting through them. Minnesota law provides just four reasons to reject an absentee ballot -- if a voters name or address is different on the ballot than on the application form, if the form lacks a signature or if the signature does not match the voter's, if the voter is not registered or if a voter already cast a ballot in the election.
Elias said Minnesota's secretary of state has instructed local election officials to sort the rejected absentee ballots into five piles, one for each of the four legal rejection reasons and a fifth pile of ballots that were rejected for reasons that are unclear or improper. It is this "fifth pile" of ballots that the Franken campaign hopes to have included in the recount.
When asked for specifics about how far the campaign would be willing to take its challenges, Elias demurred, saying only that he hoped the counties would count the ballots on their own. But court challenges or an appeal to the Senate remained on the table.
"One way or another," he said, "we are going to ensure these votes are counted."
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