Search for missing Minn. Senate ballots stopped

The city of Minneapolis has stopped searching for about 130 ballots in the U.S. Senate recount, leaving state officials to choose between two sets of tallies in the tight race between Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken.

City officials believed ballots were missing after the number of votes recounted in one precinct ended up 133 less than the number tallied on Election Day. The missing votes favored Franken, who would fall another 46 votes behind Coleman if the precinct's recount numbers are used instead of the initial tally.

City spokesman Matt Laible said workers looked all day Friday at the city's election warehouse without success, then regrouped over the weekend and decided to turn over two sets of numbers to the Secretary of State's office: the Election Day tally, and the recounted results.

It will be up to the state Canvassing Board to decide which count to use. The board meets Friday and could discuss the issue then.

Franken's campaign expressed hope the board will use the Election Day count, while Coleman's campaign has questioned whether the discrepancy was actually the result of missing ballots.

Coleman, a Republican, led his Democratic challenger by just 215 votes after the initial count of 2.9 million ballots. Outside of the precinct with the missing votes, the recount erased only a small portion of that advantage.

The outcome could rest on thousands of ballots that the two campaigns have challenged and that the Canvassing Board will begin reviewing Dec. 16.

Franken's campaign challenged almost 3,300 ballots, but last week he withdrew more than 630 of them and on Monday he pulled back another 425. Coleman's campaign made a similar number of challenges and withdrew 650 of them last week, and a spokesman said more would be withdrawn Tuesday.