Canvassing Board Certifies Franken as Winner

Today was not a great day for now-former Senator Norm Coleman.

First, the state Supreme Court rejected his request to include about 650 additional wrongfully rejected absentee ballots (most of which were in Coleman-friendly territory) to the final count and to delay the Canvassing Board from certifying a winner until that request was met. This lawsuit was what many thought was his last hope, and it was a Hail Mary pass at that.

The majority opinion of the court said that the Coleman campaign's attempt to include these additional ballots did not meet the criteria for counting ballots which was laid out in a previous ruling, in which they declared that both sides had to agree for any additional wrongfully rejected absentee ballots to be counted.

Then, later in the day, the Canvassing Board certified the results of the recount and declared Democrat Al Franken (above) as the winner by a margin of 225 votes.

Franken declared victory a short time after: "After 62 days, after the careful and painstaking hand inspection of nearly 3 million ballots, after hours and hours of hard work by elections officials and volunteers across the state, I am proud and humbled to stand before you as the next Senator from Minnesota," Franken told supporters today.

He also carefully called on Coleman to bow down and concede from the race so that Minnesota could seat two Senators as soon as possible.

But the Coleman campaign had different ideas. Coleman's attorney, Tony Trimble, confirmed earlier today that the campaign will be filing a formal lawsuit contesting the results of the Canvassing Board.

Even though Franken has now been declared the winner by the Canvassing Board, he will likely not be seated for some time. In Minnesota, an election's certification is not considered final and absolute if a legal contest is filed with one week. And you can bet the farm that Coleman will file his lawsuit in that 7-day window.

Also, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, threatened a Republican filibuster if the Senate Democrats try to seat Franken provisionally before all legal matters are attended to. He said that the GOP will also block Franken until Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) cosigns Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's election certificate.

But today's certification by the Canvassing Board was clearly a big step towards resolution of this endless Senate contest. Like I said yesterday, it's basically up to Coleman when this thing will end because it's all based on how long he wants to drag this thing out.