Franken Gaining on Coleman in Minn.

Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman's lead over Democratic challenger Al Franken has been shrinking since election day, as state election officials continue to count provisional and absentee ballots. Here are the vote results from the Minnesota Secretary of State's office at various points throughout the day:

9:15 AM
Coleman: 1,211,520
Franken: 1,211,077

10:15 AM
Coleman: 1,211,525
Franken: 1,211,088

1:20 PM
Coleman: 1,211,527
Franken: 1,211,190

9:00 PM
Coleman: 1,211,542
Franken: 1,211,306

So as the day wore on, Coleman's lead has gone down from 443, to 437, to 337, to 236. After all of the votes are counted, regardless of who's ahead, an statewide automatic recount will be triggered. But legally speaking, it is important who has the lead going into the recount. Remember Bush v. Gore?

Coleman has been urging Franken to concede, but the Democrat has adamantly refused and wants all the votes to be counted, then recounted. We will probably not know the winner of this race until December.