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By Patrick Condom and Martha Lonn / AP
IMAGE -- AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
06:16:29
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — As the manual recount in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race began, one volunteer judge asked the city election director what to do if she spotted a questionable ballot and no one else did.
"I don't think that's likely," election director Cindy Reichert said, waving a hand at a bevy of watchdogs encircling the counting table Wednesday. "I think at least one of these eight eyes will see it, too."
Around the state, election officials began their review of nearly 2.9 million ballots under intense scrutiny from teams sent by Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken. With national Democrats within striking distance of a filibuster-proof majority, the stakes are high.
The Minnesota recount — elections in the state are done on paper ballots fed into scanners — is required by law because the Nov. 4 votes cast for Coleman and Franken differed by less than one-half of 1 percent. Coleman's 215-vote lead at the outset of the recount translates to eight-thousandths of a point.
The secretary of state's first look at recount figures Wednesday night showed that nearly 16 percent of ballots were recounted on the first day, with 221 challenges statewide. Coleman helpers challenged nine more votes than Franken's.
Overall, the secretary of state's figures showed Franken slicing into Coleman's pre-recount lead by 43 votes.
But many counties that were supposed to start counting Wednesday reported no results to the secretary of state. Several counties that didn't finish their recounts offered incomplete results.
Seven counties that completed their recount reported no change in vote totals, though some ballots had been challenged. In eight others that completed their recount, totals for both Coleman and Franken fell.
Before the recount began in Minneapolis, several representatives from each campaign met in a circle and shook each others' hands, like basketball captains.
Coleman's volunteers were looking for ballots "where voter intent is unclear," said Pat Shortridge, the lead Coleman volunteer in Minneapolis. A Franken campaign spokeswoman said his volunteers had the same mission.
At the main Ramsey County tally site in St. Paul, county elections director Joe Mansky laid out the task and the ground rules before the sorting began: 30,000 ballots to count each day, or one every five seconds for each counter. No one but county election employees or election judges may touch the ballots. No food or drink, no talking.
Mansky said counting would take place six hours a day. "There is a limited amount of time that you can count or pile ballots without getting a little crazy," he said.
Once the counting began, things got tedious pretty fast. Workers plowed through thick stacks of ballots, sorting them into a series of piles.
Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, stopping to greet recount workers in Ramsey County, said he expected the number of challenged ballots forwarded to the canvassing board would be "very small."
In all, 49 of 107 recount sites — some county, and some city — began their work on Wednesday. Each site is required to finish their work and report by Dec. 5; a state canvassing board will take up their results, and make rulings on disputed ballots, beginning Dec. 16. Litigation could drag a final resolution well into 2009.
Courtesy of The Associated Press
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