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.
Republican Sen. Norm Coleman holds a lead of only about 200 votes over his main opponent, Democrat Al Franken, but a hand recount that begins Wednesday could show that a few thousand votes were mistakenly rejected.
With Coleman's lead under a margin of 0.5 percent of the more than 2.9 million votes cast in the Minnesota senate race on November 4, the state automatically begins a hand recount of every ballot.
Minnesota used optical scanning machines to read paper ballots, and enough ballots could have been mistakenly rejected by the machines to alter the outcome of the race, said Beth Fraser, director of governmental affairs for the Minnesota secretary of state's office. The office estimates that as many as two votes for every 1,000 cast--or as many as 6,000--may have been mistakenly rejected.