and rotate your first finger in a circle on your thumb. That is, of course the world's smallest phonograph by which we're playing the song "My Heart Cries for You" for Elphie and all his dead-ender friends. No doubt in the next life, they'll get a chance to tell their marvelous tales of the chimperor's heroic deeds to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children dead as the direct result of our invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Before you post an item which claims that a recount is "never ending," and make it sound as if there are parallels to what happened in the massive chaos of Florida following the 2000 election, at least do enough homework to remind yourself that the recount in Minnesota was NEVER going to be completed until the canvassing board met to go over challenged ballots, then certified the results of the recount on December 19th. This was ALWAYS the end date of a carefully-orchestrated, legally-defined recount process.

Yes it is true that, as votes were recounted by hand in each local county, some representatives of the campaigns were a bit over zealous in playing tit-for-tat when a rep from one side or the other seemed to be unreasonably challenging ballots (challenges which are allowed by law for any and all reasons, no matter how miniscule). As each side re-examines and decides against many of their own challenges, it only saves the canvassing board the time it would have taken to look at a ballot and come to the same obvious conclusion.

There has been no "never-ending" process. All of this has only provided a side show and given the pundits and journalists something to report that they can (inaccurately) describe in horse race terms.

What both sides are already seeking to clarify in the courts which could stretch the process out is the treatment of absentee ballots, of which there were an unprecedented number this year. So far in Minnesota, there has not been a procedure by which voters could appeal the rejection of their absentee ballots by local election judges. This is especially problematic for military personnel where the time frames for applying for, receiving and returning absentee ballots are so tight and the time to correct any errors is not available. (For local voters, many, though not all, of our local election officials contact them when errors are found and allow them the opportunity to correct those errors any time before the polls close on election day, which is completely legal.)

It seems some local officials were strict enough to reject an absentee ballot where the voter's registration listed their address as 100 NE First Ave, but the voter listed their address as 100 First Ave NE. Some of the programs or personnel used to enter voter registrations even seem to have converted such addresses from the commonly-used form to the form preferred by the US Postal Service, even where that was not the form of address submitted by the voter.

These suits have already been filed and could, conceivably move up through the courts for quite awhile after the date of the Canvassing Board certifies the election results. It's unclear whether the courts will decide the election results are not yet complete and order all Counties to re-examine and "sort" their rejected absentee ballots by court-ordered criteria which will then allow some of these ballots to be forwarded to the Canvassing board or the court to be re-considered (each is now in a sealed envelope so that, although the absentee voter is known, how they voted is not).

Some counties have already sorted their ballots in this way, while others are refusing to do so without a court order.

It's also not certain whether such a re-consideration of rejected absentee ballots will benefit Mr. Coleman, Mr. Franken, or neither of them, although it would seem to be to the benefit of voters whose absentee votes were rejected without adequate reason. No doubt Minnesota's election law will rapidly be changed to outline a process by which voters can appeal the rejection of their absentee ballots in subsequent elections.

So although it's unlikely to be over even after Friday the 19th, there's nothing like the chaos of Florida 2000 anywhere in this process.