The Minnesota Senate race is heading to a recount, according to reports.

The Secretary of State’s Recount Guide is helpfully online.  Sample instructions provide:

This is an administrative recount held pursuant to M.S. 204C.35 and M.R. 8235.  It is not to determine who was eligible to vote. It is not to determine if campaign laws were violated.  It is not to determine if absentee ballots were properly accepted. It is not – except for recounting the ballots – to determine if judges did things right. It is simply to physically recount the ballots for this race! It is an opportunity for everyone, particularly Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State the losing candidate, to satisfy themselves that ballots were, in fact, counted properly in a close race.

The “politics of recounts” (Google shows no search results for that term) can require as much deft maneuvering as the legal positioning.  Recount politics goes beyond physically recounting the ballots.  (A Klobuchar staffer was reportedly at a polling place, too.)  The Secretary of State said that he was not aware that there were any voting irregularities, according to this report.