However, Norm Coleman is going to the courts to add even more rejected absentee ballots. Still, to overcome a 225 votes deficit at this point seems extremely unlikely.
Here’s more from the Star Tribune…
DFLer Al Franken held an unofficial lead of 225 votes over Coleman, according to a newspaper tally of the officials’ count of the [...]

What looked completely unlikely just a few weeks ago has turned around for the funnyman as he has won some key decisions in the past week and is now ahead by just 46 votes.
That’s right…46 votes.
From the Star Tribune:

A state Supreme Court ruling Wednesday narrowed the options available for Sen. Norm Coleman to erase a [...]

In fact, it’s the widest margin ever for any non-incumbent who has won the POTUS.
Check out these numbers…

So maybe it really was a landslide?
Still, as Nate Silver points, if you slice this onion a different way and look at the votes as a % of the total registered voters, Reagan comes out on top…
By [...]

The plot thickens…
The state’s five member Canvassing Board, which oversees the recount, is meeting to decide how to deal with thousands of absentee ballots that are not included in the recount. Franken’s campaign says the ballots were wrongly rejected, and that about 6,400 ballots were wrongly disqualified. Coleman’s team says the board doesn’t have the [...]

With more than 3/4ths of the precincts counted, it looks like Franken will fall short, barring some wild turn around in how these votes are shaking out.
Still, FiveThirtyEight thinks there’s a chance…
The Star Tribune now puts Coleman’s lead at 180 votes, and the Secretary of State, 167 votes. (The Star Tribune’s tally appears to [...]

I’m following the Minnesota recount pretty closely because we could potentially have the makings of a super majority on our hands if Franken wins the recount and Jim Martin is able to beat Saxby Chambliss in Georgia.
In any event, after the first day Franken had cut Coleman’s lead from 215 to 172. And today Coleman [...]

The Hardball panel dissects the weirdness going on up in Minnesota.

Long story short, whoever wins has the best lawyers…much like Florida in 2000.

As I noted last night, the Minnesota recount is under way and Al Franken made up some serious ground in the first day.
Still, why is he contesting the above ballot?
More from StarTribune:
The bubble beside Norm Coleman’s name appeared to have both an X and a squiggle in it, but the Al Franken campaign wants [...]

Well, my home state definitely took its sweet damn time announcing this, but now it’s finally official that we picked Mac, which means we’ve picked the loser for only the 2nd time in the past 100 years.
Here’s more…
The narrow McCain Missouri victory, by just 3,902 votes out of 2,888,000 cast, means that Missouri sided [...]

Stevens had a 3,200 vote lead on election night, but that has completely evaporated.
Yesterday, Doug posted that Mark Begich led by only 3 votes.
Today that total is up to around 800.
Begich: 132,196
Stevens: 131,382
And the Dems inch closer and closer to a supermajority…

Two days ago I asked the question “Where are the 130M votes?”
Well, it seems like my basic math skills beat the predictions.
2004 Vote Total: 121,069,054
2008 Vote Total: 122,145,887
That’s a far cry from the projections of 130M+ we were told on Wednesday, and even with all the absentee and provisional ballots floating around out there, I [...]

We’ve been told today that yesterday wasn’t just a win for Obama…it was a win for American democracy. People were finally energized to come out to the polls and both candidates broke records for the amount of votes they received.
However…where are the totals proving this?
First, the claims from Politico:
More than 130 million people turned out [...]

That’s the word from their CNN’s exit polling, and that number is CRAZY.
Oh note, first time voters make up about 10% of the registered voting population.
Amazing.

Danielle, here!
I’m back in Philly, my home away from home, sitting in a swanky hotel lobby, facing a wall, like a crazy person, in order to borrow wireless. And I’ve just published a piece for ANP.
Here’s the scoop…
Today, registered voters in Philly found their names missing from local poll books, which are apparently [...]

Just got mine a few minutes ago.
Originally they were just going to give it out to voters, and they said as much in this commercial…

However…
They ran into some problems when folks thought they were violating campaign laws by offering incentives for voting.
From Newsweek:
Election laws prevent individuals and organizations from offering monetary incentives to get [...]

I’ve been hearing a lot about this lately…the idea that people say they won’t vote for Obama, but when they get into the polls they will.
The evidence is obviously all anecdotal, like this story from Salon where a couple voters use the N word in reference to Obama…but say they’re supporting him anyway.
And then this [...]

Why is this significant? Because 51% of those were Dems, 30% were Repubs and 19% were Indies.
So with 2.6M votes already in the bank, Dems have at least 1.3M of those to Repubs 860K.
Still, the turnout on election day promises to be massive.
MSNBC reports…

This favors Obama, but I’m still not convinced Obama will pull [...]

(photo courtesy of jparonline)
I saw this story on CNN earlier and I’m happy to report that the lines are once again moving at the 5th Ward polling station.
Basically, people who were there early at 6:00 am didn’t get to vote until 8:30 because they had election officials had the wrong registration books. The line literally [...]

Have you?
And, if so, how long was your line?
Mine was about 45 minutes.
Do tell…

It has all come down to this one day, and the folks at NBC show you what they’ll be watching for.

By the way, if you don’t know when polls close in your state, check out our post with ALL the closing times.
And get out there and vote!