The intense scrutiny of "voter intent" resumed this morning by the five-member board charged with directing Minnesota's recount in the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and Democratic rival Al Franken, and the first 90 minutes of ballot rulings turned the challenger's slight deficit into a growing triple-digit lead.

Also this morning, the State Canvassing Board sidestepped the Coleman team's proposal to prevent as many as 150 ballots from being counted twice. Talking about instances when a ballot couldn't be run through a voting machine, requiring a duplicate to be made, the Coleman camp said that such ballots should be counted only if an original could be matched with its copy.

If you've somehow managed to keep yourself from slipping into a coma while reading that, here's your ice cream for diligent tenacity in matters tedious minutiae.

It's the Minnesota state canvassing board arguing over the veracity of "candidates" like "Lizard People" and "The Flying Spaghetti Monster." Riveting stuff…

That's maybe the best piece of sketch comedy I've seen in months.

(via Wonkette)

I mean sure, there are bubbles with names like the ones lots of people have filled out in standardized tests, but the problem with elections is they obviously don't give you enough ballots to practice on. And you have to use a pen and no erasing!

As both the Norm Coleman and Al Franken legal teams challenge ballots for the Minnesota Senate race, you realize just how many mistakes people make. There are ballots with identifying marks, write-ins that people didn't bother voting for, votes in pencil, filled-in vote bubbles that were crossed out and a giant NO next to Coleman's name where both Coleman and Franken have been chosen.

In the famous Beltrami County ballot that will be the Hanging Chad of Aught Eight, a reptilian-American wrote-in "Lizard People" for President. Though the voter chose Al Franken for Senate, he/she filled in the write-in line as well for the Lizard People. It was thrown out by the county as an over vote.

Several questions arise: Should the county have accepted the Franken vote? Does the voter consider Al Franken equivalent to the Lizard People? Is Lizard People a collective, or just one person like Cat Power? If elected, will the Lizard People rule benignly or will they control us with their forked-tongue tyranny?