Envelope With Uncounted Ballots Found In Minneapolis

Story based on reports from Tom Elko --

Election workers combing the Minneapolis Election Warehouse have found an envelope with less than 20 uncounted ballots.  The ballots may be from Minnesotans serving overseas in the US Military.  The envelope has not ben opened.

The envelope does not contain the 133 ballots missing from Ward 3 Precinct 1 which is the Dinkytown area (University of Minnesota).  Minnesota's Secretary of State has ordered the recount on that precinct be held open so workers can search for those ballots.

It's supposed to be the last day of the recount. All counties are finished with the exception of Wright and Scott counties...and perhaps on precinct in Minneapolis where 133 ballots are missing. We will probably get an update on that from the Franken campaign when they hold a news conference at 12:15PM CT today.

The missing ballots are just one of three major issues still unresolved in the recount. The others are thousands of ballot challenges by both candidates and what to do about mistakenly rejected absentee ballots, sometimes called "the fifth pile".

The State Canvassing board will rule on the challenges starting December 16th and will take up the rejected absentee ballot issue a week from today.

Franken's campaign says it has a lead of 10 votes as of Wednesday night, but that does not include the missing ballots. Our own crude "challenged adjusted" measurement says Coleman holds a 160 vote lead.