The Coleman campaign continued its addition-by-subtraction campaign, challenging considerably more ballots than Franken’s people did Tuesday in order to create an artificial "lead" of 243 (per the StarTribune) or so. (There’s also more evidence that the vast majority of Coleman’s challenges are bogus.) Franken’s campaign claims that their own count, which includes challenged ballots, shows Coleman’s lead down to "double digits" (84 is the number I’ve seen bandied about most often from Monday, but it’s apparently shrunk since then).

But looming up ahead is a game-changer: The state canvassing board meets Wednesday morning to discuss the fate of over 6,000 absentee ballots that had been rejected by local election officials — nearly twice as many as the total number of challenged ballots so far. Al Franken wants these ballots counted, Norm Coleman does not. If the canvassing board agrees to count these ballots, this may foul up Coleman’s addition-by-subtraction scheme. For those interested in watching the action live, go visit the live link at The UpTake. (The UpTake reported earlier on its front page that Itasca County isn’t waiting for the canvassing board to act: They’re going to go ahead and review the rejected absentee ballots from their own county, thus setting a precedent that has got to have Coleman sweating bullets.  No link now exists to The UpTake’s story, but the StarTribune’s also reported it.)

Updates after the jump.

As of 11:24 AM CST, Mike McIntee of The UpTake reports the following info, via Twitter, on the canvassing board’s meeting to decide this: "They want to go ahead with having the local election officials sorting rejected absentee ballots into five piles. One pile for each of the four reasons that the law lays out for rejecting an absentee ballot. The fifth pile for absentee ballots that were rejected improperly. Now what happens after that is unknown since there is a question of who has jurisdiction. They have recessed to get an opinion from the MN Attorney General’s office [on who has the jurisdiction to add or not add the ballots to the count]." The Politico and Pioneer Press are framing this as a defeat for Franken, though their article does mention, near the bottom, that the canvassing board has not yet finished with the issue. McIntee added this at 12:34 pm: "What I believe is the most likely scenario out of this meeting is the local officials, at Ritchie’s urging, go back and sort the rejected absentee ballots. I suspect the local officials will have their own mini hearing with both campaigns about what to do about the improperly rejected ones. This is where the flashpoints could happen. Ultimately I think a there will be a class-action lawsuit for the voters or the improperly rejected absentee ballots will be accepted and counted."

Interestingly, if the 290 persons living in the University of Minnesota student housing cooperative called The Chateau had been able to vote in their local precinct this year, as they have in the past, Coleman might not have been able to claim a lead right now.

3:20 pm UPDATE: From The UpTake, covering the Franken campaign’s press conference on the canvassing board’s actions today:

1:56Mike McIntee: So here is the text from the Franken campaign press release for your consumption.
"We appreciate the Canvass Board taking the time to meet this morning and are encouraged by the broad consensus that there is a universe of Minnesota voters who have been improperly disenfranchised. We are obviously disappointed with the Board’s decision. Members of the Board noted disenfranchisement would be the result, and most of them noted their own grave concerns about that consequence.

"We are encouraged that the Board is going to have further deliberations next week, preventing at least some of the absentee voters from being disenfranchised, including those rejected for obvious errors. As we have said all along these votes will be counted, and based on today’s meeting, I remain more confident than ever that that is true. Whether it is at the county level, before the Canvass Board, before the courts, or before the United States Senate, we don’t know yet. But we remain confident these votes will be counted. The Board’s consensus only strengthens our resolve."

There was a proposal to have the counties review rejected absentee ballots, but it apparently arrived too late to be considered by the canvassing board:

3:02 Mike McIntee: Apparently the proposal from Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to have the counties review the rejected absentee ballots arrived at the Canvassing board not too long before the meeting started. That’s why they did not fully consider it. We’ve been told we’ll get more of an explanation from the Secretary of State’s office by email. The Coleman campaign has issued a press release saying the Franken campaign "manipulated" Freeman into the proposal.

3:07 Mike McIntee: Here is the quote in the Star Tribune:
In a statement, the Coleman campaign said: ‘This is a back-door effort by both the Franken campaign, and Mr. Freeman, to try to gain influence on the eve of the discussions by the Canvassing Board, and there needs to be further explanation for why the Hennepin County Attorney is using his office in such an overtly partisan manner.’"

Freeman is later quoted
But Freeman disagreed with that assessment. "This is trying to count all the ballots. How the hell is that partisan?" he said.

Fasten your seat belts, folks. This one’s going to be lovely!