Coleman campaign to withdraw 650 ballot challenges

By GottaLaff

Yeah, yeah, good, but can we just declare Franken the winner and end Election 2008 already?

Sen. Norm Coleman’s (R) campaign said Thursday it will withdraw 650 challenges to ballots favoring Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota’s contested Senate recount.

The withdrawals mirror those of the Franken campaign, which on Wednesday withdrew 633 challenges to Coleman votes as part of an ongoing effort by both sides to draw down the 6,326 total challenges in the recount. [...]

The Canvassing Board will meet to review the remaining challenged ballots on Dec. 16.

The Coleman campaign also spoke about the controversial 133-ballot discrepancy between the original and recount tallies in a Minneapolis precinct, which ended up favoring Coleman.

“We have a plausible explanation from Minneapolis election officials as to what occurred,” Knaak told reporters. “The issue in Ramsey County is pretty serious, but it may end up not mattering.”

According to a running count conducted by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Coleman leads Franken by 316 votes. However, the Democrat’s campaign said Wednesday that it leads by 22 votes.