Local News

ST. PAUL (AP) ― Democrat Al Franken on Wednesday moved to withdraw 633 challenges to ballots in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race in what could be a first step toward a quicker conclusion to the recount.

Franken's attorney, Marc Elias, said many more withdrawals are likely. An attorney for Republican Norm Coleman said he may follow suit soon. Any reduction in the pile of challenged ballots -- more than 6,000 so far -- will reduce the work that faces the canvassing board that meets starting Dec. 16.

Meanwhile, Franken appeared on track to lose 36 votes in Minneapolis due to an apparent Election Night counting error, just a day after he gained 37 uncounted votes in Ramsey County. A Franken spokesman said the incident demanded a better explanation.

On the challenge issue, the Franken campaign mailed a letter to Secretary of State Mark Ritchie Wednesday with a list of specific challenges to discard. "If there are challenges that are without merit, it doesn't do either side any good to have them considered," Elias said.

Coleman's attorney, Fritz Knaak, said the Republican's campaign has also been reviewing its challenges with an eye toward withdrawing some -- but said they wouldn't do so until after Friday, the deadline for the recount to end.

"We don't want to send the wrong message to our volunteers still working at the recount sites," Knaak said.

Franken's decision was the first step back from a high number of ballot challenges on both sides. Challenges range from ballots with votes for more than one candidate to many that simply had a pen scribble somewhere on the ballot. The number of challenges far exceeds the margin between the candidates, making it difficult to pin down whether the recount has been swinging the advantage toward one or the other.

After Election Day, Coleman led Franken by 215 votes.

By the end of the day Wednesday, he led by 316 votes according to recount totals posted by the secretary of state. The gap comes from a comparison of precinct totals from Nov. 4 and the recount.

But that apparent lead was far overshadowed by the more than 6,300 ballot challenges filed by the two campaigns. Coleman's challenges exceeded Franken's by 156 in the state total.

It wasn't immediately clear if Franken's withdrawn challenges were reflected in the latest count. His challenge number had risen from the report the night before. And he added 147 challenges in the four counties that started their recounts Wednesday.

While each candidate has challenged a considerable number of votes, the types of challenges matter as well. Both candidates are attacking votes that would otherwise go to their competitor, but they're also challenging ballots where they feel they are entitled to a vote for themselves.

So it's conceivable that Franken could pull back hundreds of challenges and not dramatically affect the vote gap between himself and Coleman.

There was confusion in Minneapolis as the state's largest city wrapped up its recount, after officials discovered what they said was a pile of about 130 ballots that was counted twice on Election Day. City elections director Cindy Reichert said the ballots contained write-in votes and she believes they somehow were fed through a counting machine twice.

Franken spokesman Andy Barr said the city's numbers didn't add up, and demanded that conflicting information be reconciled before the city's recount be declared finished.

The disputed ballots were in a single precinct. Overall, both men lost in the Minneapolis recount, but Franken lost 126 votes more than Coleman. But 432 ballots have been challenged.

Coleman's campaign spokesman Mark Drake chided the Franken team for its uproar over the ballots.

"The Minneapolis officials appeared to be quite thorough in their search today, and it is disappointing that the Franken campaign, once again, is attacking local election officials and blaming them for simply doing their jobs," Drake said.

-------

Norm Coleman was born in New York City in 1949. Al Franken was born in New York City in 1951.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)