A brief update:
Sen. Norm Coleman leads by 206 votes.
The state finishes re-canvassing three million ballots today.
On November 18, the certification board certifies what's been counted.
Then, an automatic manual recount begins.
What's an automatic manual recount, you say?
Warren Stewart of the Verified Voting Foundation lays it out:
"....a "manual" recount specifically required hand counting the ballots - that's in fact the reason it is part of state law. In the scanning process, some ballots are inevitably not counted for a variety of reasons - mis-marked ballots, potential calibration issues on the scanners, dust build-up on the sensors, errors in ballot programming files, or any number of other reasons. This is true of any optical scan voting system, but usually the margins are large enough that such residual votes would not make a difference. However if the margin is such that the tolerance for error could be outcome determinative (in Minnesota its .5%), the state has provided for an automatic hand recount - counting the ballots without the mitigation of software and scanning devices.
The process could take a month.
In theory, errors are likely to cancel each other out. Republicans will be suspicious if Coleman's lead shrinks any further.
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