In the clearest sign yet that he has dramatically shifted strategies since falling behind in the U.S. Senate recount, Republican Norm Coleman's campaign said Monday that it will push to have all 12,000 absentee ballots rejected in the election reconsidered and to ensure that those wrongly set aside are counted.

In their fight to overturn the U.S. Senate recount, Norm Coleman's legal team has begun pressing some Minnesota counties for documents on hundreds of thousands of ballots that were not previously disputed.

The issue will be discussed on the same day Noblesville school district residents will use the same voting machines to decide a ballot question on whether to spend $59.5 million on building projects.

An automatic, manual recount of the Minnesota U.S. Senate race that began could last until mid-December. As non-partisan, election integrity advocates in Minnesota, we welcome this attention and hope that one of the outcomes will be lessons learned that strengthen our democracy.
 

Democrat Al Franken and Republican Sen. Norm Coleman — locked in a race that could alter the power structure of Washington — are continuing their fight as officials begin a recount Wednesday that is expected to last for weeks.

The outcome of the Minnesota Senate race--which could give the Democrats a firmer grasp on power in Washington--may depend on whether scanning machines made mistakes two weeks ago when tabulating ballots.

A record 2.9 million Minnesotans went to the polls on Nov. 4. Unofficial returns the next morning showed the incumbent Republican senator, Norm Coleman, with a 725-vote lead over his Democratic challenger, the comedian Al Franken. Since then, as county canvassers certified results and election errors were corrected, that lead dwindled to 206 votes, seven-thousandths of 1 percent.