<tans were looking forward to being done with the bitterness of the Al Franken-Norm Coleman battle for the United States Senate seat, it looks like they will have to endure several more weeks of it. While Norm Coleman claimed victory early Wednesday morning over a margin of more than 600 votes, Al Franken announced that he would excercise his right to a recount, due to possible voter irregularities in the Twin Cities area. In recent days, however, the margin has shrunk all the way to 236 votes, at which point the recount became state-mandated because the margin is less than one half of one percent of all votes cast.The margin has been changing since Wednesday morning because county auditors have been finding minor errors in their ballots as they are preparing to send them to St. Paul for the recount. Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has said that the recount could take several weeks, with the outcome not being decided until possibly early December.
With the Democrats controlling 56 seats in the Senate, and four races, including the Coleman-Franken race, still up in the air, the possibility of a filibuster-proof majority hangs in the balance of the outcome of the results of the recount. Despite the added pressure, Franken said on Minnesota Public Radio that he didn’t forsee the recount process garnering the kind of media scrutiny as Florida in 2004.