The recount in Minnesota’s contested Senate race between incumbent Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken is supposed to wrap up Friday, but the former Saturday Night Live writer and comedian on Thursday called for an extension claiming more than 100 ballots in Minneapolis are missing, the latest twist in the bitterly fought contest.

In a conference call with reporters Thursday, Marc Elias, Franken’s lead recount attorney said about 133 votes in Minneapolis’s Third Ward are missing. Elias said Franken would benefit by receiving 46 net votes of the 133 ballots unaccounted for. He added that the number of ballots on Election Day does not square with the number of ballots turned over by the precinct for the recount. The difference could cost Franken the election. 

Franken’s communications director Andy Barr said “2,029 voters had their votes recorded on Election Day, and now local officials are able to produce only 1,896 ballots.”

Elias demanded Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, “Hennepin County, and the City of Minneapolis to complete an intensive search.”

“The outcome of this election may be at stake. The integrity of the Minnesota electoral process is also at stake,” Elias said. “That doesn’t mean [just] looking around the office. They should conduct a systematic, forensic search of the polling location, any vehicles that were used to transport those ballots and the warehouse where they were stored.”

State election officials have agreed to keep the recount open beyond Friday while they search for the missing ballots. Minneapolis elections director Cindy Reichert said “several mistakes were made in the precinct” but she did not elaborate. On Wednesday, she claimed the 133 ballots were counted twice on Election Day and that explained why there was a shortfall of 133 votes. But she has since backtracked on that claim.

Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann said the city of Minneapolis has until Dec. 16 to locate the missing ballots. That’s the day the state canvassing board, the panel overseeing the recount, is scheduled to meet to review challenged ballots.

“We won’t meet our goal to have all ballots hand-counted by the end of the day [Friday] unless the envelope returns in the next 24 hours,” Gelbmann said.

Coleman campaign manager Fritz Knaak said Franken’s campaign is being dramatic. 

“We do not know that there are any ballots missing, and it is premature and simply irresponsible to suggest that they are,” Knaak said. 

On Wednesday, Elias told reporters that Franken moved past Coleman for the first time during the recount and lead the incumbent by 22 votes. On Thursday, he adjusted that number and now says Franken leads Coleman by 10 votes. Elias said Coleman lead Franken by 215 votes going into the recount and Franken netted 225 votes giving him a 10 vote lead. Knaak said Elias’s figures are based on fuzzy math. 

An analysis by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, however, shows Coleman with a 251 vote lead over Franken as of Thursday evening. Unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s website shows Franken leading with 1,197,965 votes to Coleman’s 1,193,307 as of Thursday evening with 98.8 percent of the 2.9 million votes counted and 99.3 percent of the precincts reporting. The totals, however, do not include the 633 ballots for Coleman the Franken campaign challenged. 

Franken’s campaign’s internal accounting of the recount includes the assumption that more than 3,000 votes cast for Franken that the Coleman campaign has challenged will be upheld by the state canvassing board, the panel overseeing the recount, in favor of Franken. Franken’s campaign challenged about 3,000 ballots. Both camps withdrew a combined 1,200 challenged ballots–out of more than 6,000–Wednesday and Thursday and may withdraw additional ballots in the days ahead. 

This is the second time since the recount began two weeks ago that ballots have been reported missing.

Earlier this week, Minnesota election officials found 171 “missing” ballots from a precinct in Ramsey County.

The ballots were not actually missing. Rather they weren’t counted by the optical scan voting machines. The voting machine broke down in the precinct on Election Day and was replaced, but the 171 ballots were never fed through the machine to be tabulated.

That prompted the Secretary of State’s office to issue a letter to Joe Mansky, the Ramsey County elections chief, demanding an explanation.

“The Office of the Secretary of State is concerned to learn that 171 ballots from Maplewood Precinct 6 were found in a voting machine’s auxiliary compartment,” says a letter sent to Mansky Tuesday. “Under the guidelines established by the State Canvassing Board for this recount, all votes not rejected, should be included in recount totals. However, this office is concerned that election judges of both parties did not notice the significant difference between the number of voters and the number of ballots when they finalized the results on Election night.

“This office has been proactive in repeatedly contacting the Deputy Recount Officials asking to re-check all machines, ballot boxes and ballot storage areas for all ballots cast by Minnesota voters in the Nov. 4 general election. Given the magnitude of the difference, the Office of Secretary of State is asking Ramsey County for a detailed explanation as to how this error occurred and went unnoticed until now. This office is requesting that the county re-verify the number of individuals who voted in this precinct, to reassure both this office and the public that these newly found votes were validly cast.”

In addition to missing and challenged ballots there are still unresolved issues over absentee ballots that Franken’s campaign said were wrongfully rejected and should be included in the recount.

Last week, the five-member canvassing board, which is chaired by Secretary of State Ritchie, two district judges and two Supreme Court justices, unanimously rejected a legal brief from Franken’s campaign that sought to include absentee ballots they said were improperly discarded on Election Day. Franken’s campaign believes the absentee ballots may help his chances of beating Coleman in the race.

The panel, which did not rule on the merits of the case, said it did not have the legal authority to include absentee ballots in the recount unless instructed to do so by a judge. 

According to Elias, Franken’s campaign has identified at least 1,000 absentee ballots improperly rejected and they have appealed to the state canvassing board to count the ballots. State election officials conceded that some absentee ballots were wrongfully rejected but they pegged the number at 500.

Franken’s campaign believes if the absentee ballots improperly rejected are included in the recount it could help Franken move past Coleman. 

Franken communications director Andy Barr said Monday that “although we believe that the majority of these…rejected absentee ballots were properly rejected, it is clear that among them are the improperly discounted ballots of Minnesotans who did everything right.”

The canvassing board is scheduled to meet Dec. 12 to discuss the absentee ballots issue. But ultimately the state’s attorney general will decide whether improperly rejected absentee ballots can be counted by the canvassing board.

Two weeks ago, Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Raschke Jr. said the canvassing board is “not to determine if absentee ballots were properly accepted” when the canvassing board was first queried about the issue. 

“Courts that have reviewed this issue have opined that rejected absentee or provisional ballots are not cast in an election,” Raschke wrote. “Only the ballots cast in the election and the summary statements certified by the election judges may be considered in the recount process.”

Elias said Monday Franken would consider asking the Senate to weigh in on the matter if the absentee ballots go uncounted. 

“No recount can be considered accurate or complete until all the ballots cast by lawful voters are counted,” Elias said. “If ultimately there is no remedy before the canvassing board or before the courts, then [the Senate] is certainly an option.”

One way or another, Elias said, the absentee ballots that were improperly rejected will be counted. 

“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,” Elias said last week. “But we remain confident these votes will be counted.”

The canvassing board must certify the contest and declare Coleman or Franken as the winner before one of them can take the Senate seat by the time the 111th Congress convenes in January. If the race is still undecided or if the loser challenges the recount then the full Senate or Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty can make a temporary appointment to fill the vacant seat.

The Senate may be less inclined to interfere in the contest now that the possibility of a 60-seat filibuster proof majority has been lost. On Tuesday, Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss defeated Democrat Jim Martin in a runoff.