Coleman to withdraw 650 ballot challenges

Sen. Norm Coleman’s (R) campaign said Thursday it will withdraw
650 challenges to ballots favoring Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota’s contested
Senate recount. 

The withdrawals mirror those of the Franken campaign, which on
Wednesday withdrew 633 challenges to Coleman votes as part of an ongoing effort
by both sides to draw down the 6,326 total challenges in the recount.

{mosads}“We do so at the direction of the senator, who has made it clear
that we work with the Franken campaign to minimize challenges,” said Coleman
campaign lead recount attorney Fritz Knaak in a conference call Thursday
morning. “Sen. Coleman is adamant that we respect the efforts of Minnesota
elections officials and volunteers to get this done quickly.”

Knaak said the campaign will continue to identify challenges that
may be withdrawn, as well as ballots that it will ask to be re-examined.

The Canvassing Board will meet to review the remaining challenged
ballots on Dec. 16.

The Coleman campaign also spoke about the controversial 133-ballot
discrepancy between the original and recount tallies in a Minneapolis precinct,
which ended up favoring Coleman.

“We have a plausible explanation from Minneapolis election
officials as to what occurred,” Knaak told reporters. “The issue in Ramsey
County is pretty serious, but it may end up not mattering.”

According to a running count conducted by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Coleman
leads Franken by 316 votes. However, the Democrat’s campaign said Wednesday
that it leads by 22 votes.