The fate of at least 1,346 unopened absentee ballots will begin to be decided today, as local election officials meet to see which ones were improperly rejected. Both campaigns will have much to say about that...

St. Paul Pioneer-Press:

Lawyers ended a testy public negotiation session convened by the secretary of state's office without agreement on which ballots to open or how many should be under consideration.

That leaves the heavy lifting to a series of regional meetings, which begin today. The ballots that make the cut at those meetings will be opened in St. Paul by Monday.

Those ballots are important because Franken leads Coleman by just 47 votes after the manual review of more than 2.9 million ballots.

Minneapolis Star Tribune, which has Franken leading by 46 votes:

A Star Tribune analysis of the origins of 93 percent of those ballots suggests an advantage for Franken.

With the state Canvassing Board holding out the possibility it may certify a winner in the hotly contested race as soon as next Tuesday, and with Franken holding a narrow lead, the absentee ballots may hold the key to the winner of the state's most contentious U.S. Senate race ever.

But by the time the second of two meetings with Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann ended late Monday afternoon, the campaigns remained far apart. Campaign lawyers held dueling news conferences, accusing the other side of trying to prevent an agreement. And even Gelbmann, who at one point asked lawyers from both campaigns to remain "civil," said a late proposal from Coleman -- to review 654 more votes atop the 1,346 absentee ballots that local officials had already agreed were mistakenly rejected -- threatened to derail the process.