I look forward to my new career as an election overseer.

So, for the next two weeks or so, an army of volunteers, state workers, and lawyers are going to be counting and observing the counting, and contesting and arguing about, every single one of the nearly three million ballots cast last election day in Minnesota in the race for Senator.

I had spent some time during the latter period of the election season working on the election, mainly for Ashwin Madia, but also for Al Franken and Barack Obama. The recount extends my own commitment, and that of thousands of others, to keep working on this. (Yes, I'm trying to make you feel a little bad if you are not doing this. Click here. )

We know, because the evidence is abundant and overwhelming, that if this was left for the state to do by itself, Coleman would win because there would be cheating and lying. The governor himself was caught in a serious misstatement, which may have even been a lie, just the other day, spreading rumors about a pack of absentee ballots driving around in the back seat of someone's car. When corrected by the Secretary of State with the fact that this is untrue, he did not withdraw his statement or issue a correction.

A recent alignment in proposed policy between the Franken campaign and the Secretary of State (the legal body in charge of elections) indicates that Franken is just trying to get every vote counted (yes, the more votes that are counted the more likely he is to win, but counting all the votes can never be seen as a nefarious strategy!!!). Meanwhile, Coleman called foul yesterday and stated that the similarity in proposed policy between Franken and the Secretary of State meant tht something was fishy. Maybe it is just that everyone knows what the right thing to do is and Coleman is trying very hard to makes sure that whatever is supposed to happen does not happen.

In a few hours, I pick up a neighbor and we head down to one of the local colleges in Saint Paul to attend training to be recount overseers. I'm looking forward to my new career as an election overseer. I'll travel the world overseeing elections in places like Haiti, Zimbabwe, El Salvidor and Florida! Count the votes, see the world!

In the mean time, here is a detailed account of some of the latest. This is from the Star Tribune, so you may need a subscription. (Don't leave Star Tribune web pages open unattended on your site, as they are resource hogs and re-load by themselves at frequent intervals.)