Star Tribune editorial-page editor Scott Gillespie says Al Franken just might win the race, but a large number of Americans will believe the recount was rigged. Why?

Because the stolen-election drumbeat has started, and it will only get louder as the results of the recount get more national attention. Ignoring Minnesota law, talk-show hosts are already questioning why any ballot that’s not marked properly in the first place should be valid in a recount. Intent is a concept they would rather not grasp.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, bringing her unique view of reality to Fox News on Wednesday night, said Franken “wants to stuff the ballot box with rejected ballots,’’ which “calls into question what the record is and who’s watching the books.’’

Another reason: While Bachmann took to Fox to impugn the recount process, the network’s judicial analyst, Andrew Napolitano, took a potshot at the recount’s top official. Apparently reading off the recently unearthed GOP talking points, he described Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie as “a Democrat and a former communist — former member of the Communist Party,” although he offered no evidence to support the claim. He may have been taking liberties with a line from a year-old Star Tribune story (cited in the GOP’s memo) by Mark Brunswick, who wrote that the “Communist Party USA wrote encouragingly of [Ritchie's] candidacy.”

On a conference call with Sen. Mitch McConnell Thursday morning, Norm Coleman, the man “who brought hockey back” to St. Paul, rallied troops with a puckish metaphor, one that seems to ignore the fact that at this late stage in the game, the final score is largely up to recount officials and the state Canvassing Board (and, let’s not forget, campaign lawyers): “We’re on the ice and its time to put the puck in the net.”

Senators will have to wait a bit longer to see if they’ll get upgraded office digs in Washington, D.C. CQ reports that the biennial process of doling out office space is on hold until results come in for the Coleman/Franken recount and the Dec. 2 runoff in Georgia between Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin. Freshmen senators, low in the pecking order, are forced to “camp out in makeshift work spaces longer than usual.”

Another tight race in Minnesota has been settled through recount: State Rep. Al Doty, the incumbent Democrat from Royalton, won a second term over Mike LeMieur by a slim 76 vote margin. Two other state nailbiters are awaiting recount results, according to The St. Cloud Times:

In House District 16A, DFL challenger Gail Kulick Jackson led Rep. Sondra Erickson, R-Princeton, by 89 votes on Nov. 4.

In Senate District 16, DFLer Lisa Fobbe led Republican Alison Krueger by 85 votes before the recount began.