Tuesday’s meeting of the State Canvassing Board won’t just be a rubber-stamp affair. 

It’s gonna be a doozy.

The Al Franken campaign today filed an 18-page brief and four affidavits from aggrieved voters in an effort to get the board – including Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and four state judges – to include previously rejected absentee ballots in the vote count between Sen. Norm Coleman and Franken.

The campaign’s position before the board, including State Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, is an extension of its public stance last week.

Succinctly, “In an election this close, every vote matters and every vote should be counted,” recount lawyer Marc Elias told reporters this afternoon at Franken’s University Avenue headquarters in St. Paul.

But Elias then took that stance a few steps farther.

He said that the board has “a duty, a legal obligation, to see that votes are not improperly not counted.”

Despite the double negative, here’s what that seems to mean: Tuesday, when campaign counsel and former U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug faces the board, he will present affidavits (PDF) from four voters – one from Kandiyohi, one from Goodhue and two from Pennington counties – detailing why their absentee ballots were rejected. 

All of the reasons are somewhat innocent and related to human or record-checking errors.

But here’s the main point.

On Tuesday, the board is scheduled to certify the vote count from Nov. 4. The presumption was that the board would find that the margin is 206 votes, with Coleman ahead; his lead amounts to 0.007 percent of the vote, triggering Minnesota's legally required recount of a race closer than 0.5 percent.

But Elias’ argument is that the vote might be closer still. He said Franken is not seeking to delay the recount.

But, he said, carefully choosing his words, “We are seeking that the canvass itself not be finalized until there is a determination of whether or not all of these ballots have been counted … I don’t think they have a vote count to certify tomorrow … We’re going to ask them to make sure that in the certification is a review of these ballots … We would ask them to not certify the vote count until this is completed.”

Franken spokesman Andy Barr said there are “hundreds” of such ballots out there. He wouldn’t be more specific. He said the campaign has received data on rejected absentee ballots from “12 to 15” counties out of the state’s 87. Ramsey and Hennepin have not responded to Data Practices Act requests to release the names and addresses of citizens whose absentee ballots were rejected.

The question of the hour: Without a certification, can there be a recount?

One other thing: A hearing has been set for Wednesday in Franken’s lawsuit against Ramsey County seeking the data to chase down voters whose ballots were rejected

Ritchie is conducting a new conference this afternoon at 3:30. We might know more then about all of this and will update, along with any Coleman campaign reaction.

Prediction: If the State Canvassing Board rejects the Franken campaign’s arguments Tuesday, legal action in federal court seems a certainty.