Al Franken has emerged from the U.S. Senate recount with a 225-vote lead over incumbent Norm Coleman. The five-member State Canvassing Board unanimously certified the results at a hearing Monday afternoon. Roughly two months after the election — and following a painstaking statewide manual recount of nearly 3 million ballots — Franken received 1,212,431 votes, while Coleman was backed by 1,212,206 voters.

While the actions of the canvassing board would seem to suggest that the epic election contest is finally drawing to a close, the Coleman campaign immediately made it clear that they have no intention of conceding defeat. Attorney Tony Trimble announced at a press conference following the canvassing board meeting that they will file a lawsuit contesting the outcome of the contest. The Republican’s campaign believes that various voting improprieties — wrongly rejected absentee ballots, double-counted ballots and lost ballots — have tarnished the recount.

“Since the process is far from complete there can be no confidence in the current results of the United States Senate recount,” Trimble said. “We will file a contest within the next 24 hours to promptly correct those problems.”

The Franken campaign, not surprisingly, hailed the development. “Today is a great day for the people of Minnesota,” lawyer Marc Elias said. “I stand before you proudly as the attorney for the next Senator for the state, Senator-elect Al Franken;”

Franken himself declared victory in front of his Minneapolis condominium this afternoon. Reports out of Washington today suggested that the Senate will attempt to seat him tomorrow with the other freshman legislators. Republicans have vowed to prevent that from happening through a filibuster. In another unwelcome development for Coleman, his office was ordered shut and staff sent home at the direction of the Senate rules committee.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and the four other members of the canvassing board expressed satisfaction at the conduct of the state-mandated recount. “I think this recount has proven the wisdom and the strength of that system in an amazing way,” Ritchie said at the close of the meeting. “This didn’t just fall from the sky. People long before us built this system.”

But canvassing board member Eric Magnuson, chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, summed up the continuing ambiguity surrounding the ultimate outcome of the Senate contest. “I don’t think we’ve written the last chapter in this particular election,” he said.