I read with surprise that Coleman has called Al Franken to concede.
The ever shrinking difference between the two is at this point:
438 votes!
AL's response:
"It’s very premature to prejudge the outcome of this, considering that we’re already seeing that once you start canvassing, you already see a lot of things," Franken, the DFL challenger to Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, told MPR’s Gary Eichten in a live interview moments ago.
Franken was referring to Coleman’s shrinking lead, which amounted to more than 700 votes when the senator declared victory Wednesday. That number has since dropped to 438 votes - which amounts to 0.01 percent of the nearly 3 million votes cast.
Franken said he didn’t foresee a Florida-style brouhaha surrounding the recount. The debate over the 2000 recount, Franken pointed out, took place in a state in which George W. Bush’s brother was the governor and the secretary of state had been accused by Democrats of suppressing votes. "Minnesota is very good at counting its votes. That ‘s why I feel this process will go in an orderly way. We just have to be patient."
More below...
Precedents for recounts in MN (and I know this is just anecdotal evidence):
"Duluth, Minn. — Melanie Ford had never run for office when she decided to challenge Alan Mitchell. He's been the St. Louis County Attorney for 28 years. No one had ever challenged him.
The vote was close all the way through election night. The morning after, it looked like Ford was the winner. But then some late returns gave the race to incumbent Mitchell.
Now, a month later, a recount found a few reporting errors, mostly in townships where votes are counted by hand.
Paul Tynjala is St. Louis County's top election official. He says those kinds of mistakes are understandable.
"That's definitely a paperwork error and 99.99 percent of the time it makes no difference. And it even wouldn't have made any difference if it had been a big margin," he says. "But in a close race like this, it's huge. It was a huge change."
I'd say that Al Franken MUST WAIT UNTIL THE RECOUNT IS DONE. HE CANNOT GIVE THIS ONE TO COLEMAN. I am thinking that Franken won.
UPDATE: difference is 338 VOTES now.