Minnesota Missing Ballots: Search Given Up

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that the hunt for missing ballots in Minnesota is off, at least for the moment:

The missing 133 ballots in a Minneapolis precinct are going to stay missing - at least for now.

City spokesman Matt Laible said today that officials had suspended the search for the ballots that began after they turned up missing in the waning hours of last week's U.S. Senate recount.

The matter will be turned over to the state Canvassing Board, which will decide whether the 133 will be officially counted, Laible said.

Al Franken's campaign says they are not too worried about the ballots, because the state is planning to count the original Election Day results from that county. If the ballots are not found and the Election Day results are not used, it would cost Franken a net 46 votes -- which, as TPM reports is, quite possibly enough to flip the race to Norm Coleman.