Al Franken appears to have come out of challenge-ville with a slim lead:

The Star Tribune reports that Al Franken holds a 48-vote lead over Norm Coleman, with thousands of withdrawn challenges having been added back in to the respective candidates’ totals. This number would be roughly in accordance with the 35-50 vote lead projected by the Franken campaign.

Coleman is pretty screwed here.  He doesn’t have a whole lot going for him, and his only real possibilities for gains will be from rejected absentee ballots and possible reduction in Franken votes due to alleged duplicate ballots.  Both avenues appear extremely unlikely to net him enough votes.

Let’s stop and give a hand to the Minnesota State Board of Elections and the Minnesota Secretary of State.  This recount has been handled fairly well, given the circumstances, and things will likely be resolved in a decent manner.  Also, I think Minnesota has set the standard for transparency during a recount process, by posting vote totals and procedures online, as well as displaying the review boards decisions live on flat panel TV’s.  Also, the Minnesota Star Tribune has been indispensable during the process, providing all challenged ballots online for your perusal.

So, I say: Good job, Minnesota. (Even if FoxNews doesn’t think so…)