ST. PAUL - A man who knows the subject liked what he saw Wednesday as Minnesotans began recounting 2.9 million U.S. Senate election ballots.
"They're going as smoothly as you could anticipate when you're first starting a process that is new to everybody involved," Wesley Kliner, who was part of the 2000 presidential recount in Florida, said while watching the process in Otter Tail County.
The comment from the Tennessee attorney, working for Norm Coleman's campaign, was echoed throughout Minnesota as the historic recount began.
A mostly smooth first day was reported Wednesday, the beginning of a recount process expected to take more than two weeks.
The secretary of state's office Wednesday night released tallies with 15.5 percent of the ballots recounted that show Coleman led by 14,715 votes over challenger Al Franken. However, many of the large counties where the recount will take days are traditional Democratic strongholds, so the race should tighten.
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Statewide, the recount gave Republican Coleman 70 fewer votes in the same precincts and Franken 27 fewer, compared to what was reported election night. Some numbers listed on the secretary of state's Web site were slightly different from numbers announced at recount sites.
The Coleman campaign challenged 115 Franken ballots, while Franken recount observers challenged 106 Coleman votes. Those ballots will be examined by a state board next month to determine who voters intended to pick.
Most counties reported little change from their election-night tallies.
However, in the St. Louis County precincts counted Wednesday, Democrat Franken gained 24 votes over those counted earlier in the heavily Democratic-Farmer-Laborite area and Coleman lost one.
The 25-vote Franken net gain was due mostly to an older type of voting machine used on the Iron Range that does not always read faint lines.
The St. Louis vote swing appeared to be the biggest change on the first day of the recount.
Political observers across the country were watching as hundreds of election workers began counting every one of the 2.9 million ballots individually to determine who wins the Senate race.
Going into the automatic recount, incumbent Coleman held a 215-vote lead over Franken. That narrow margin, close enough to trigger a state-mandated recount, makes it the closest Senate race in Minnesota history.
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At stake, if Franken can win and a Democratic Georgia candidate can take a new election there, is a Senate majority that can overcome any Republican filibuster attempt.
Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said a few recount delays were reported when dealing with overseas ballots, but few other issues were heard.
"This is Day 1, a sort of learn-how-to-do-it day," he said.
While things appeared to be running generally smoothly, Ritchie said, the nasty Senate campaign was carrying over to a certain extent.
"The mood is weird, but not too bad," said Ritchie, the top state elections official. "There is a lot of tension."
About half of the 107 recount sites began work Wednesday. Twenty-eight other sites will begin today, with others starting the count as late as Dec. 3.
No winner is expected until the last half of December, with the possibility that court action will delay a decision even more.
Besides simply recounting the ballots, campaign observers were looking for ballots that may have been counted wrong by machines or that machines rejected all together. State law requires a ballot to be counted if the voter's intent can be determined.
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Both campaigns were challenging some local election workers' decisions on that front, sending the ballots to the state Canvassing Board, which will decide the winning candidate starting Dec. 16.
Ritchie said there will be "a relatively small number of challenges," but out of 2.9 million votes, even a small number can sway the election.
As the recount started, Franken Wednesday won a court ruling ordering Ramsey County to turn over data on voters whose absentee ballots were rejected. The campaign wants improperly rejected absentee ballots included in the recount. The state Canvassing Board has not decided if that will happen.
Several smaller counties completed their recount work Wednesday.
One of the early finishers, Norman, reported no challenged ballots and the same vote total as recorded election night.
"It went better than I could ever have imagined," said Auditor Rick Munter, whose team finished at 12:45 p.m. "I didn't expect to be out of here without any challenged ballots."
While the 2,910 who voted in Norman make it one of the smallest counties, eight recount stations were set up in one of the bigger counties, the Dakota County Judicial Center in Hastings, where 225,000 ballots would be counted.
A New York Times photographer recorded the Hastings recount, in a former cafeteria where a crime scene tape separated the public from recount workers.
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Nobles County, which completed its recount, ended up awarding one more vote to Coleman. Five ballots were challenged.
Hubbard County's recount ended with Coleman picking up a trio of votes over the earlier tally.
In Hubbard County, campaign observers were easy to identify. Franken's team was mostly young men in jeans and plaid shirts. The Coleman campaign was mostly well-dressed senior citizens.
In Bemidji, one side didn't talk, but the other did. When approached by a reporter, a Franken supporter showed a slip of paper indicating a gag order by the campaign, referring all questions to Franken headquarters in St. Paul.
"We've got six here now and about 30 volunteers," said former Rep. Doug Fuller, R-Bemidji, who with Washington, D.C., attorney Andrew Miller, were serving as leads for the Coleman campaign.
