Recount’s running total has Franken in front — a first

This morning, for the first time in Minnesota’s drawn-out U.S. Senate election, major media outlets began to report a lead for Democrat Al Franken over Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. The news came soon after the State Canvassing Board began its fourth and perhaps final day of evaluating ballots challenged by both campaigns during the statewide hand recount of the Nov. 4 vote.

As with the two- and three-digit leads that Coleman has held over the course of weeks of recalculating and recounting since Election Day, Franken’s lead is merely a snapshot, a momentary margin in a still-changing running total. The margin will likely grow from single to triple digits during the course of the day, as the board rejects ballots the Coleman campaign had challenged, and returns many votes to the Franken column.

It’s a watershed moment, a turn of the tide but one that could turn back again. After the State Canvassing Board completes its review of challenged ballots, challenges that the campaigns withdrew will be returned to the vote count and likely benefit Coleman. Then there are the estimated 1,600 wrongly rejected (and, so far, uncounted) absentee ballots statewide that the Minnesota Supreme Court yesterday ordered to be added to the tally — as long as the campaigns and state and local officials consent.