(Photo by Aaron Landry/Flickr)

(Photo: Aaron Landry, Flickr)

After counting 351 previously rejected absentee ballots, Democrat Al Franken expanded his lead over Norm Coleman in the contest for Minnesota’s still-vacant second U.S. Senate seat. Franken, who lead Coleman by 225 votes going into today’s count, now leads by 312 votes (Franken gained 198 ballots today, Coleman 111). Coleman attorney Ben Ginsberg immediately stated that the campaign would appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Ginsberg argued that had the three-judge panel presiding over Coleman’s election contest okayed the review of 4,800 ballots, the number the campaign had previously (and unsuccessfully) pushed for, the Republican would’ve won.

“We are saddened and disappointed that it was only 351,” he said in a press conference. “It should have been about ten times more than that. And so because those voters remain disenfranchised in the state of Minnesota, that has always wanted to enfranchise voters and not disenfranchise them, and because we feel that there are significant errors in this trial court and how it ran this case… we will be appealing this to the Minnesota Supreme Court.”