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The Pennsylvania senator said he 'misspoke' in an interview with the New York Times Tuesday when he voiced his support for GOP Sen. Norm Coleman.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Sen. Arlen Specter's recent switch from Republican to Democrat appears to have caused him some confusion over party loyalty.

The Pennsylvania senator said he "misspoke" in an interview with the New York Times Tuesday when he voiced his support for GOP Sen. Norm Coleman, who is locked in a recount battle with Democratic challenger Al Franken in Minnesota.

"In the swirl of moving from one caucus to another, I have to get used to my new teammates," Specter told CQ Politics. "I'm ordinarily pretty correct in what I say. I've made a career of being precise. I conclusively misspoke."

Questioned about who he's supporting in elections Specter responded, "I'm looking for Democratic members. Nothing personal."

Specter's comments came after an interview with the Times in which the Pennsylvania senator declared he is rooting for a Coleman win in the hotly-contested Senate race. "There is still time for the Minnesota court to do justice and declare Norm Coleman the winner," he told the magazine.

An attorney for former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, pictured above, said they still plan to appeal to the state's high court.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) – A day after a much-awaited trial court ruling named Democrat Al Franken the winner of Minnesota's U.S. Senate race, an attorney for former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman said they still plan to appeal to the state's high court.

Coleman lawyer Ben Ginsberg emphasized the need for a full review of the ruling over the need for a speedy appeals process. "I would be surprised if it's before next week," he said. "I mean, we're reviewing the 65-page opinion, and I think we'll take time to be sure we review and frame the issues correctly before we file the notice."

The Coleman camp's arguments were shot down from just about every angle in the lower court's decision. But Ginsberg said he has confidence the Minnesota Supreme Court will see their case differently, and focus more on the equal protection argument Coleman had been pursuing all along.

He added that, based on what he's seen in the state Supreme Court's historical rulings, the high court justices will be more conscious of the "rights of voters."

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Democrat Al Franken extended his lead over former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman Tuesday as the three-judge panel overseeing the election trial tallied an additional 351 absentee ballots that had not previously been included.

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) – Democrat Al Franken extended his lead over former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman Tuesday as the three-judge panel overseeing the election trial tallied an additional 351 absentee ballots that had not previously been included.

Despite his slim chances, Coleman had been hoping to overtake Franken's first post-recount lead of 225 votes. After Tuesday's additions, Franken leads by more than 300.

While the judges did not offer an official ruling - or indicate when they would - these vote totals are likely to remain unchanged.

"I think we are done," Franken attorney Marc Elias said at a press conference upon the completion of the tallying at the Minnesota Judicial Center. ""There is a sense of relief that it's over, at a personal level."

But banking on the fact that the judges' final decision would rest in Franken's favor, Coleman attorney Ben Ginsberg reasserted the former senator's desire to appeal the case to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

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MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) – Perhaps laying the groundwork for an appeal to a higher court, Republican Norm Coleman’s attorneys are beginning to publicly question the three-judge panel presiding over his post-election legal battle, saying Wednesday that the judges are creating a "real problem” by not reconsidering their ruling from Friday that put a damper on much of Coleman’s case over rejected absentee ballots.

“The court creates a real problem for itself and the reliability of these proceedings,” said Coleman attorney Ben Ginsberg, adding that it could create a “legal quagmire that makes ascertaining a final, legitimate result to this election even more difficult.”

Coleman’s attorneys maintain the judges’ Friday order that threw out certain rejected absentee ballots and ruled them unlawfully cast due to certain errors fails to account for “thousands” of absentee ballots that could have been accepted while still containing the same errors.

According to Ginsberg, “illegally cast ballots under their definition are included in the counts.”

The types of ballots ruled taboo by the judges include categories of absentee ballots submitted by non-registered voters, absentee ballots inside a return envelope not signed by the voter or absentee ballot applications that were not signed, and absentee ballots that were dropped off in person on election day.

Ginsberg said that about 100 ballots allowed in to the count during the recount process would have fallen under the new outlawed categories.

The Coleman campaign’s press release does not say whether or not they are currently pursuing other legal avenues or setting up an appeal.

Asked if that were the case, Coleman spokesman Mark Drake said only, "We're concentrating on the 3-judge panel and hoping they cure the defect they've created.”

A spokeswoman for Democrat Al Franken Jess McIntosh said Coleman's lawyers are "denegrating" Minnesota's election process "in order to set up their appeal."

Franken held a slight lead of 225 votes after the recount was completed. The trial is now in its fourth week of testimony with no apparent timetable for a speedy conclusion.

Norm Coleman will argue many votes were not recounted properly in his bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate.

(CNN) – Former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman has not given up the fight for Minnesota’s Senate seat.

Monday Coleman personally attended the first day of the trial where a three judge panel is considering testimony in his post-election challenge.

In a statement also issued Monday, Coleman took issue with several aspects of the recount recently concluded by a state canvassing board which declared Democrat Al Franken the winner in a very tight race against Coleman.

“I will remain actively engaged through the election contest trial, as I have done through every step of these post-election proceedings,” Coleman said in the statement.

“I have great confidence in my legal team and I remain fully confident that if these issues are properly addressed - if no vote is counted twice, if consistent standards are applied, and if no voter is disenfranchised – I will end up where I was on Election Day: in the lead on my way back to the United States Senate.”

–CNN All Platform Journalist Chris Welch contributed to this report.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman has instructed his lawyers to move forward with the lawsuit contesting the decision to certify results of the Minnesota recount.

(CNN) - Former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman has officially filed a lawsuit to contest the state canvassing board’s decision to certify results of the statewide recount which put Democrat Al Franken on top.

Appearing before the press for the first time in months, Coleman said he has instructed his lawyers to move forward with the lawsuit.

Watch: Coleman to contest recount

"Not every valid vote has been counted and some have been counted twice," Coleman said, repeating allegations made by his attorneys. They lay much of the blame for these alleged errors on the secretary of state’s office, saying officials there have sympathized with Franken.

The Coleman lawsuit, filed in Ramsey County District Court, would produce a trial that would be presented before a three-judge panel. Coleman attorney Fritz Knaak said he "would not be surprised" if the trial lasts for a solid two months.

Knaak added that "technically, we could re-do the entire recount," although that was not currently in their plans.

There is still no official winner in the state’s Senate race, since Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty won't sign off until legal battles have been exhausted.

Watch: Reid urges Coleman to concede

CNN has learned that a state board in Minnesota overseeing a recount in the razor-thin Senate race will declare Democrat Al Franken the winner Monday.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) – A state election board on Monday will announce Democrat Al Franken as the winner of the Minnesota Senate race, defeating Republican incumbant Norm Coleman, state officials told CNN Sunday.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie told CNN the canvassing board on Monday will confirm that Franken won the race by a 225-vote margin.

Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann oversaw the tallying of roughly 950 improperly rejected absentee ballots Saturday, which was the last remaining hurdle in the canvassing board's procedure. He said no outstanding challenges remain and that the only thing left for the board to do Monday is certify the numbers. Their meeting will convene at 2:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. ET).

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Democratic challenger Al Franken has a slight lead over Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in the race for the Minnesota Senate seat.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) – Sen. John Cornyn, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is weighing in on Minnesota's close and still unresolved U.S. Senate race, saying Friday that no one should be seated until a winner is made official by both the Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Currently, Democratic challenger Al Franken holds a slight lead of about 50 votes over Republican incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman, but this number does not reflect what could be more than a thousand improperly rejected absentee ballots still to be tallied, which would sway results.

Cornyn, a Republican from the state of Texas, said a filibuster may be in order if Franken were seated before an official certificate is signed by Ritchie and Pawlenty.

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Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, left, and Democrat Al Franken have swapped leads in Minnesota's Senate race.

(CNN) - With somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 ballots left to be processed, the recount in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race will resume this week and likely will not be resolved until the end of the month, Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said Sunday.

A unofficial running tally on the Minneapolis Star Tribune's Web site had Democrat Al Franken leading incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman by 251 votes
on Sunday - in a race in which nearly 2.5 million votes were cast - but Ritchie cautioned against pronouncing either candidate ahead until all votes are counted.

"From the first night of the election - election night, November 4 - it has been impossible to say which candidate was leading because it is not known
who's leading until all the ballots are counted," Ritchie said in an interview with CNNRadio.

"The many people who have been making pronouncements about who's ahead and who's behind are not speaking from a knowledge base. They are speculating."

Ritchie said the state canvassing board has completed the vast majority of the main work in the first round of the recount and board members will meet
Tuesday to finalize vote totals. That will leave between 1,000 and 2,000 wrongly rejected absentee ballots and about 150 overseas ballots left to be processed, he said.

"We had 99.97 percent agreement in the first round, that's with the candidates and the local election officials," Ritchie said.

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As of Friday morning, Al Franken has a narrow lead over Sen. Norm Coleman, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) – Democrat Al Franken currently holds a slight edge over incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman in Minnesota's still unresolved U.S. Senate race, according to a running tally on the Minneapolis Star Tribune's Web site.

The newspaper's mid-morning tally showed Franken with a 102 vote margin over Coleman with several hundred ballots still to be reviewed. On Thursday evening, Coleman had been ahead by single digits.

But the race remains fluid: the results reported by the Star Tribune are an ongoing tally, with hundreds of challenges still to be reviewed Friday.

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Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, left, has a slim lead over Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota's Senate race.

(CNN) - Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's unofficial lead over Democrat Al Franken shrank to five votes as a Minnesota Canvassing Board continued analyzing ballots from the November 4 Senate election, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported Friday.

About 3 million votes were cast in the election, and the close result tripped an automatic recount.

Franken, a former "Saturday Night Live" comedian and writer, gained several hundred votes Thursday night as the board ruled on ballot challenges from both sides, the newspaper reported.

Full story

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) – Minnesota's Supreme Court Thursday barred officials from including rejected absentee ballots in the recount of the state's hotly contested U.S. Senate race unless both of the candidates and elections officials agree the ballot was improperly rejected.

Incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and former Air America talk show host Al Franken are caught up in a fiercely fought battle over the recount of ballots from the November 4 election.

Coleman had filed suit to stop the recount of thousands of rejected absentee ballots until a "uniform" process for reviewing the ballots can be devised.

Instead of halting the recount, the court ruled that local elections officials "lack the statutory authority to count" rejected ballots on their own but can do so if they and the candidates all agree that a ballot was rejected in error.

Updated 7:38 p.m.

Pawlenty is weighing an interim Senate appointment, says his spokesman.

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) – Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is quietly prepping for the possibility of a temporary Senate appointment, given the increasing likelihood the nation's lone unresolved Senate contest might not officially come to a close before Congress convenes again next month.

As the contentious Senate recount of the race between Republican Norm Coleman and Al Franken stretches more than six weeks past Election Day, the Republican governor's spokesman Brian McClung told CNN that the governor's office has asked the general counsel to Gov. Pawlenty "to begin looking into... what might trigger the need for a gubernatorial appointment to the U.S. Senate."

There is no word yet on who, if anyone, might be under consideration for a temporary Senate seat if a winner is not declared by the congressional swearing-in date of January 6.

Recount begins in tightly-contested Minnesota Senate race.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) - Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said after a long day of reviewing more challenged ballots Wednesday that a certification of recount results in the race between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota's Senate race would not be released until next week, assuming the review of challenged ballots ends on Friday.

But a few unresolved issues still remain. One is the question over what to do with improperly rejected absentee ballots: The state canvassing board-the entity of judges, along with Ritchie, charged with overseeing the recount-has asked for counties to begin the process of reviewing and counting those. However, the Coleman campaign has said there is no "uniform" method for doing so.

Wednesday, the state Supreme Court heard the Coleman team's arguments and said a decision is "forthcoming."

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The canvassing board met this week in Minnesota to review ballots in the state's very tight race for a U.S. Senate seat up for grabs

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) – A Minnesota justice hearing arguments from attorneys facing off in the year's last remaining Senate contest told a legal veteran of the 2000 presidential recount that his state is "not Florida."

Attorneys for both Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken presented their sides before the Minnesota Supreme Court Wednesday.

Speaking for Coleman before the panel of justices was attorney Roger Magnuson, no stranger to recount battles, who represented the Florida's state senate in Bush v. Gore.

If the state’s canvassing board includes any of the "improperly rejected absentee ballots" at the heart of the dispute, warned Magnuson, this race could easily turn into the debacle that ensued in Florida eight years ago.

He was immediately interrupted by Associate Justice Paul Anderson, who appeared to take serious issue with the analogy.

“I know you’ve been to Florida,” Anderson said. “This is not Florida. And I’m just not terribly receptive to you telling us that we’re going to Florida and we’re comparing to that. This is Minnesota. We’ve got a case in Minnesota. Argue the case in Minnesota.”

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The Minnesota recount continues today.

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) - Their self-imposed deadline was this Friday. But the panel weighing disputed ballots in the year's lone unresolved Senate race now faces an end date as uncertain as that vote's outcome.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and the four other members of the state's canvassing board resumed their deliberation over challenged ballots Wednesday morning, as the race between Republican Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken remains too close to call.

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