Former comedian and Democratic Minnesota senatorial candidate Al Franken has official taken a narrow lead over Republican incumbent Norm Coleman after the recount initiated by Franken reaches its final counting.

Under Minnesota law, a recount can be requested by an candidate in any close race. Coleman’s initial lead of 215 votes out of 2.9 million cast meet qualifies that Franken subsequently pursued.

Franken currently leads by a slim margin of 48 votes. The Coleman campaign is telling the press that they are disputing some of the ballots which, if successful, will swing 49 votes to Coleman, thus giving him a 1 vote lead.

The Franken camp says that they are disputing some ballots as well which, if successful, will give them 43 votes.

There is still the matter of the 1,600 absentee ballots that will initially left uncounted, but after efforts by the Franken campaign will be considered by local election officials [though not all of the ballots will necessarily be counted]. It is unclear, of course, how these votes will be split.

Regardless of who ends up winning in the end, it is not likely that either one will be sworn in with the new Congress on January 6, 2009. The state election board will meet on January 5 to finalize the results and the session could extend to January 6.