Recount complete in Minnesota, Al Franken's campaign still hoping for victory

Minnesota has supposedly finished recounting ballots in the ultra-tight U.S. Senate race between Democrat Al Franken and incumbent Republican Norm Coleman, but it will be days before we know the outcome of the race:

For two and a half weeks, elections workers in all 87 counties examined each and every one of the 2.9 million ballots to determine whether Republican Norm Coleman or Democrat Al Franken won the U.S. Senate election.

"Counting three million ballots under the glare of a thousand klieg lights. That's the hardest part, and it's over," said Secretary of State Mark Ritchie at an afternoon news conference.

If you factor in the Election Day results from the precinct that hasn't been recounted, Coleman has a 192-vote lead over Franken. But it's still too early to declare a winner, because there are about 5,300 ballots in dispute.

The Franken campaign's internal tally shows the former Saturday Night Live comedian and Air America host ahead by just four votes, according to Politico.

TPM has some background on the methodology behind the internal tally:

At the end of this hand count, it's worth restating a few necessary caveats. The Franken camp's methodology involves taking down the opinions of the local election officials regarding the challenged ballots, and assuming that the local referees' calls will be upheld by the state canvassing board. As such, we are dependent on the Franken camp's numbers and assumptions.

The state canvassing board are going to be the ones who truly decide this race, as they rule on each challenge one by one. The Franken camp thinks this process will end with them ahead by four votes, or possibly even more, but clearly there is plenty of potential variation left.

This internal tally does not rely upon any votes from a Minneapolis precinct where one hundred and thirty three ballots are missing.

Ironically, one hundred and thirty three is the final number of votes that separated Chris Gregoire and Dino Rossi in the 2004 gubernatorial election. (The number was one hundred and twenty nine at the time of certification; the tally changed in Gregoire's favor as a result of Dino Rossi's unsuccessful election challenge when Judge Bridges removed five votes from the final count.)

It seems likely that the Franken/Coleman contest is going to end up in court. The result is so close and the stakes so high (Senate terms are six years) that neither side has any incentive to concede the race.