The Franken campaign filed a brief with the five-person board Monday, demanding that every vote be counted.
We would ask them to not certify the vote count, Marc Elias, a Democratic election lawyer working for Franken, said in a news conference Monday.
The board, which consists of Minnesotas Democratic secretary of State and four judges, is scheduled to officially certify the election results and is expected to determine that Sen. Norm Coleman (R) finished 206 votes ahead of Franken in the Senate race. But even if the tally becomes official, the race is so close more than 2.9 million ballots were cast, putting Colemans lead at 0.007 percent that a hand recount of the ballots is set to begin on Wednesday. That county-by-county count is expected to last until Dec. 5.
In the news conference Monday, Elias described the difficulty four registered voters had in casting absentee ballots. He said the four are a representative sample of the problems dozens of voters faced across the state, and because they had trouble, any official count that the state makes Tuesday will be inaccurate because dozens of voters were prevented from voting.
I dont think they have a vote count to certify, Elias said.
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