If the Minnesota Senate race seems as though it has slogged on like Groundhog Day, well, it has.

A five-member state canvassing board today unanimously rejected Al Franken’s appeal to count all those rejected absentee ballots, but that doesn’t mean the recount is over — yet. The board appears to have left room for more challenges, some at the local county level, but also in anticipation of a court fight between Mr. Franken, the Democrat, and the Republican incumbent , Senator Norman Coleman, once the recount is over.

According to The Associated Press and the Minneapolis-St.Paul Star-Tribune, about 12,000 absentee ballots — or somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 to 5 percent of all absentee votes cast — were rejected by various local poll workers around the state.

The hand recount began about a week ago, and has been chronicled like a daily episode of Florida redux, with some county officials holding their heads in their hands, and the day-to-day tallies moving by inches. Or rather by just a few votes here and there. By Tuesday night, it seemed Mr. Coleman was clinging to a 238-vote lead, but that only includes places where recounts have been completed.

Going into the recount, Mr. Franken trailed Senator Coleman by about 215 votes, from a total of about 2.9 million cast. Most of the time, Mr. Coleman has maintained a tiny, tiny lead.

In a statement released this afternoon by Mr. Franken’s lead recount lawyer, Marc Elias, he said the campaign was disappointed by the canvassing board’s decision. But he said, “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.”

The Franken campaign said it would not appeal today’s board ruling, while awaiting further meetings.

But Mr. Elias did seem to issue a rather not-so-subtle threat that the process could go on and on, drawing renewed fire from Mr. Coleman’s lawyer. First, Mr. Elias:

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.”

In response, Fritz Knaak, senior counsel for Mr. Coleman, replied:

“It is up to Al Franken to decide if he intends to subject Minnesotans to a never-ending legal battle when this recount is concluded and Norm retains his lead. Our focus is on completing the recount, and we are pleased that the Canvassing Board has committed to following the status quo in this matter.”

On Tuesday night, Mr. Knaak had released a statement urging a truce, of sorts:

“It has become apparent that both campaigns are engaged in a mounting game of ballot challenging that serves no useful purpose. This is not the way the recount process was intended to work, and we are trying the patience and goodwill of election officials and volunteers throughout the state. While the Franken Campaign began this morning challenging 25 ballots in one Sherburne County precinct, the vast majority without merit, it’s obvious that our campaign volunteers felt the need to match these growing and unnecessary challenges throughout the day. This is an artificial game which has virtually no bearing on the outcome of this recount as we know that the vast majority of these challenges will be rejected before we even get to the Canvassing Board on December 16th. With that in mind, in the spirit of the holidays, and to give respect to this process that it deserves, we ask you to join us tomorrow morning in standing down in the game of ballot challenge one upsmanship.”

This battle seems destined for some record book, especially given the Democrats’ inching forward to a filibuster-thwarting 60-vote threshold in the Senate. Of course, we’re also all still watching the Georgia runoff between Senator Saxby Chambliss, the Republican incumbent, and his Democratic challenger, Jim Martin.