Minnesota is in the middle of something called a "post-election audit." It is not the Franken/Coleman recount; that starts next week. It is a check of the accuracy of Minnesota's optical scan voting machines, mandated by state law and performed after all statewide elections.

Election officials are hand-counting ballots from selected precincts and comparing the results to the machine-tabulated totals. Sounds like a recount, right? Except it operates on a much smaller scale — in 2006, the post-election audit reviewed ballots from just 5 percent of the state's precincts.

So how is it going so far? The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, which has not been friendly to Franken in this election, makes it sound like the post-election audit is slowly eliminating Franken's chances for making up the 206 vote deficit that is keeping him from unseating incumbent Republican Norm Coleman.

Twenty men and women settled in along tables at the Ramsey County elections office first thing Monday morning and began plowing through more than 7,700 ballots cast last Tuesday in the U.S. Senate race.

After nearly three hours of counting, Norm Coleman had lost exactly one net vote in five of the county's precincts. Al Franken had gained exactly one.

But that gives readers an impression that is badly wrong. As Senate Guru points out, this is good news for Franken:

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UPDATE: Marc Ambinder reports that Plouffe sent him an email saying he won't be taking the DNC chair. But Plouffe wouldn't say what he might be doing post-election.

Howard Dean is stepping down as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. This is no surprise; it's been known for months he would be departing after the election. The question is, who's next?

HuffingtonPost reports one possibility is that Dean will be replaced by a duo: Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, who would be the talk-show face of the party, and an operative who would do the operating (perhaps Steve Hildebrand, who was deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama's presidential bid).

But shouldn't the DNC job go to David Plouffe?

As the manager of Obama's campaign, Plouffe steered the best-run presidential campaign in years. He put together an effective campaign structure. He efficiently matched man, message, money, and machine. Developing his own version of Dean's 50-state strategy, Plouffe expanded the electoral map for Democrats. In public, he projected an image of calm, confidence, and competence. His public spin was always tethered to reality. He came across a master mechanic who believed in the mission, not an ideologue or a grandstander. And he beat the toughest, most experienced operation in politics: the Clintons.

It's no put-down of McCaskill to suggest Plouffe. Naming her DNC chief--with or without a partner--would have symbolic value. And she was an effective advocate for Obama, especially when he was locked in a fierce battle with Senator Hillary Clinton, though Obama appears to have lost her home state by 6000 votes. Perhaps if McCaskill becomes DNC head, that would help Obama and Dems narrow that narrow gap next time.

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The Wall Street Journal ran a cheat sheet of the powerful blacks who may wind up in the Obama administration. But check this:

Of those hoping for access and government stints, some may be disappointed. Loyalties aside, Mr. Obama, according to people familiar with his thinking, may be constrained in the number of blacks he appoints to avoid any charges of favoring African-Americans.

So, he can appoint white folks for days—but just a Negro here and there. Why won't that be seen as 'favoring whites'?

A white reporter covering a small town, McCain-area called me post-election for comment, appalled at hearing whites in the local diner angrily fretting about being demoted to the back of the bus, the Muslim Obama giving their hard-earned money to "those who refuse to work," etc. Don't worry white folks: Situation normal. A brother may be president, but he's still got to eenie-meenie-miney-mo among us blacks, his own judgment be damned. And of course, he wouldn't be the President-elect if he didn't understand these things. But it still sucks.

Whenever blacks find themselves in a group larger than three or four at work, invariably someone will 'joke:' "Better break this up. More than four and the white folks get nervous." I guess that joke ain't going anywhere. And I bet Obama's administration will blacker than any other in history but that won't take much, will it? An under-secretary here, a deputy assistant there, and soon you've got yet another quarter-step toward full equality.

But it's all good. Obama won. I can wait a little longer.

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Alas, public schools don't seem to make the short list for the Obama girls. Michelle Obama is slated to visit Georgetown Day School (where many of her husband's close advisers send their kids) and the Maret School today, and is also apparently considering Sidwell Friends, which Joe Biden's grandchildren attend. No big surprise here, really. But this should come as welcome news to many of our commenters who seem to think that public school is too much of a security risk for the president's kids, a sentiment I find sort of odd given that many DC schools already have metal detectors installed at the front door. DC schools know quite a bit about security, but apparently not enough about VIPs to make the cut.

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