Coleman slices challenge pile again

Associated Press

Last update: December 11, 2008 - 4:45 PM

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Chunks at a time, the mountain of challenged Minnesota Senate ballots is getting smaller.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman took back another 225 challenges on Thursday. It leaves him with just more than 2,000 he is still contesting.

Democratic candidate Al Franken has trimmed the challenges his campaign built up over the recount by nearly one third.

There were more than 6,650 ballots challenged during the recount, but as of Thursday the campaigns have withdrawn enough ballots to reduce the pile to about 4,200.

Whatever challenges remain will be sorted out beginning next week by the state Canvassing Board. The ballots loom large because the amount of challenges dwarfs the gap between Coleman and Franken after the manual inspection of 2.9 million ballots.

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