The Carver County recount is over. In all, it took the Carver County workers about 15 hours on Wednesday and Thursday to complete the task.

“I think everyone kept their sense of humor quite well through the process,” said Recount Deputy Laurie Engelen.

The tally for both the U.S. Senate candidates went down in the recount, in large part due to the 30 ballots pulled to bring to the State Canvassing Board. The recount numbers don’t include challenged ballots, which are not counted until a judgment is made by the state board.There were 26,966 votes counted for Coleman on Nov. 4. Following the recount there are 26,950 (a loss of 16 votes). There were 14,102 votes counted for Franken on Nov. 4. Following the recount, there are 14,094 (a loss of 8 votes). The recount of “all other ballots,” was 8,724.

There were 30 ballots challenged in the count – 20 challenged by Franken, and 10 challenged by Coleman. Votes were challenged for a number of reasons, according to Engelen. There were a handful of ballots where someone apparently voted for one candidate, then crossed it out and voted for another. These would be classified as over votes. These voters are given a chance to revote by election judges, but may have declined, Engelen said.

Engelen gave a few other examples of challenged ballots:

* Ballots that had an ink smudge, apparently from the printing of the ballots, located outside of the candidate oval, that were challenged. (This accounted for about five of the 11 challenged ballots that came from Victoria’s Precinct 2.)

* Ballots that had a mark in the candidates oval, possibly where a voter rested a pen, before filling in another oval.

* Ballots where a voter wrote in a name as a write-in vote and scribbled it out * A ballot completed in red ink, where the same ovals where then refilled in with black ink.

“We’re very anxious to see the outcome of the challenges,” Engelen said. “I would say very few of the challenges in Carver County will be upheld,” she said.

Engelen’s county department isn’t quite done yet with the election.

“We have quite a bit of paperwork to do at this point," she said. "We want to group here and see if there’s any lessons to learn as a department that we can learn in training election judges in upcoming elections.”