The Minnesota Canvassing Board began ruling yesterday on the 1,500 or so ballots challenged by the campaigns of Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken. In recent days, both campaigns had pared down the number of ballots they challenged. From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

The five-member panel ruled on about 160 challenges made by Franken's campaign -- with most of the votes awarded to Coleman, as expected -- only to learn at day's end that the Coleman campaign planned to restore 200-odd withdrawn challenges to its stack of around 1,000.

The review itself offered an often tedious but sometimes eye-opening look at democracy. It took place in the basement of the State Office Building in St. Paul, in a hearing room full of reporters and lawyers for the campaigns.

Election officials began the review by taking up ballots challenged by Franken. The Democrat went into the meeting with 441 active challenges, after withdrawing a large number in the past 10 days, plus 339 possible challenges based on incidents at the polls that the campaign says may have verged on tampering.

The day's results: Coleman added 98 votes and Franken 22, while 41 were ruled out for either side.

The board has yet to dive into challenges made by the Coleman campaign, which numbered roughly 1,000 before the word that it planned to restore about 200 of those it had previously withdrawn.