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The three judges who will decide whether Norm Coleman prevails in his election contest of Minnesota’s Senate recount limited their scope late today by ruling out re-examination of at least 12 out of 19 ballot categories. 
“[T]he facts presented thus far do not show a wholesale disenfranchisement of absentee voters in the 2008 general election,”  the judges [...]

Al Franken likely increased his lead over former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman to 249 votes after the three-judge panel presiding over the Minnesota Senate election contest ordered that 24 absentee ballots be counted.

The Minnesota Supreme Court issued an order late Monday morning denying a petition from the Norm Coleman campaign to stop the State Canvassing Board from certifying the vote in the statewide Senate recount. That clears the way for the canvassing board to certify this afternoon that Al Franken received the most votes in the Nov. 4 election as determined by the recount that followed.

The court said only “obvious errors in the counting or recording of the votes” that all sides could agree on should be fixed in the recount that the canvassing board will certify today. The court left all other disputes to a separate election contest that Coleman’s campaign has pledged to file in court within a week of today’s certification.