The Coleman-Franken campaign continues on with challenged ballots and rejected absentee ballots at issue.

The campaign between Norm Coleman and Al Franken didn't end on Election Day. In fact, they've spent upwards of $4 million since then seeking to insure their interests aren't ignored in the recount process.

The major media groups say Coleman has a 192 vote lead while Franken camp claims he holds a 4 vote lead if all the election judge decisions on challenged ballots are upheld.

Remaining issues evolve around what to do with the 133 supposedly missing ballots in Minneapolis, how to handle challenges and what to do about improperly rejected absentee ballots.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie went out of his way to be involved in the missing ballots issue. He dispatched one of his assistants to help look for the ballots. Ritchie then said if they weren't found they would likely go with the count on Election Day, which begs the question, why count them if the reason for the recount is to insure that votes were properly counted. Initially, Minneapolis' campaign official, who is a democrat, thought the number discrepancy was due to absentee ballots improperly run through the voting machines. Franken campaign objected and then they changed their tune.

Regarding the handling of challenges, it's up in the air whether a majority of the canvassing board will rule on rejected ballots by majority or unanimous votes.

And finally, there's the question of improperly rejected absentee ballots. There are four criteria in state law for which absentee ballots can be rejected. Apparently, there were a number of absentee ballots rejected for some other reason. The Canvassing Board initially ruled it didn't have the authority to include them in the recount, but will revisit the issue this Friday.

The Franken campaign has been most concerned about the absentee ballots being rejected improperly. It will be interesting to hear their position if they are ahead by a few votes after all the challenged ballots are considered. Will they still demand that they be included? I would doubt it.

It seems to me that improperly rejected absentee ballots should be reconsidered. Or if they weren't properly rejected why wouldn't they be included? That seems to clearly be a case of disenfranchisement. (Some argue that Franken would benefit by more absentees being considered while others say it would benefit Coleman more because historically Republicans are more likely to vote by absentee ballot than Democrats.)

Hopefully, this will all end sooner rather than later and the final result will not be in doubt.

It's going down to the wire. Coleman- Franken race could be decided by less than 100 votes. And Soros raising money for Franken.

The focus of political attention in Minnesota is of course on the Coleman and Franken recount. At the start of the recount, Coleman held a 215 vote lead out of over 2.88 million votes cast for US Senate candidates in Minnesota. Now, with 46% of the votes recounted, Coleman's lead is down to 136 votes. Of the 46% recounted there are 826 ballots challenges by the Franken and Coleman campaigns.

If the ratio of lost votes holds up for the remaining 54% of votes yet to be recounted that would bring Coleman's lead down to 43 votes.

One of the more interesting comments about ballot challenges was made by the state's foremost election expert. According to Joe Mansky, Ramsey County elections manager who formerly worked for the Secretary of State's office from 1984 to 1999 very few vote overturns occur.

The number of challenged ballots continued to increase Thursday, reaching 823. Mansky -- who worked from 1984 to 1999 in the secretary of state's office and is widely considered the state's foremost elections expert -- said that people shouldn't expect many of those challenges to bear fruit.

"I can only remember two ballot challenges in all those years that were sustained," he said, meaning that the campaign lawyers' views prevailed over the opinion of election judges.

He said he wouldn't be surprised if campaign lawyers negotiate a reduction in the number of challenged ballots before the Canvassing Board meets next month to go through them.

However things turn out the final result will be very close and likely in court. And it appears to me that Franken's campaign is setting up a court challenge by their efforts to get to people whose absentee ballots were rejected.

The lesson to be learned, as it was in the 2000 presidential election, is every vote is important. Voters should never presume their votes don't matter.

In related matter, it was interested seeing liberal billionaire George Soros held a fundraiser for Al Franken in New York City. He's been in the middle of efforts to politically move the United States in a left wing direction.

Will the Coleman-Franken race end in a tie or just plain close?

That's what one analysis came up with. That based on a statistical analysis of voting patterns, undervotes, etc. (Though it should be noted that Coleman picked up another nine votes since the 206 number was out there.)

Some think that problem votes will tilt Franken's direction from new voters and others unfamiliar with the voting process. Others think it will help Coleman because problematic votes will more likely be from elderly voters who would tilt Coleman's way.

Either way, it's sure to be tight.

Buyer's remorse with Franken?

The latest polling returns from the Minnesota Secretary of State show Norm Coleman winning over Al Franken by 462 votes out of 2.42 million votes. It's certainly too close to declare victory by either side in light of a recount next month. (Hopefully, it won't be a rerun of Florida 2000 controversy.)

But looking at the voting numbers, the race shouldn't have been close if another candidate had been in the race for the DFL. Franken had over 360,000 fewer votes than Obama and nearly 400,000 fewer votes than all eight DFL congressional candidates. In other words, a lot of people ticket split between Obama and Franken. Hundreds of thousands couldn't bring themselves to vote for him no doubt because of his work as a SNL satirist and some of his writings on rape and women and mockery of Christians beliefs. While he certainly brought a lot of money to the table, a candidate with a Minnesota "nice" personality and not the baggage would no doubt have done better.