MN Sen Recount (UPDATE: Stuart Smalley certified winner, lawsuit forthcoming)

[Sam Spade]

As of today's update...

Counties to Be Completed
Beltrami (1 precinct) - Star Tribune has reported no change in this precinct already.
Brown (100%) - Star Tribune has already reported this.  SOS hasn't.
Dodge (40% or 6 precincts)
Hennepin (35 precincts) - Pretty much all precincts are located in urban Minneapolis.
Le Sueur (61% or 14 precincts)
Ramsey (15 precincts) - Pretty much outer ring St. Paul suburbs.  All of urban St. Paul has reported.
Rock (100%)
Scott (100%)
Winona (100%)
Wright (100%)

[Ronnie]

I am confident, though, that Democrats will find a way to steal this election, in either court or the senate.

[Хahar 🤔]

I am confident, though, that Democrats will find a way to steal this election, in either court or the senate.

I hope so...

[cinyc]

As of today's update...

Counties to Be Completed
Beltrami (1 precinct) - Star Tribune has reported no change in this precinct already.
Brown (100%) - Star Tribune has already reported this.  SOS hasn't.
Dodge (40% or 6 precincts)
Hennepin (35 precincts) - Pretty much all precincts are located in urban Minneapolis.
Le Sueur (61% or 14 precincts)
Ramsey (15 precincts) - Pretty much outer ring St. Paul suburbs.  All of urban St. Paul has reported.
Rock (100%)
Scott (100%)
Winona (100%)
Wright (100%)

Of the five full counties out, in the SoS count, Scott and Wright (exurban Minneapolis) are the largest (100,000+ each).  They went to Coleman by about 20 points in the original count.   Brown (New Ulm/South Central MN, population 27,000) and Rock (SW MN, population 9,700) are the smallest.  They went to Coleman by 14 and 18 points in the original count, respectively.  Franken lead in medium-sized Winona (SE MN, population about 50,000) by about 5 points.

Le Sueur and Dodge (SE MN) are fairly small and went to Coleman by 7 and 14 points, respectively.  Beltrami (Bemidji, North Central MN), Hennepin (Minneapolis) and Ramsey (St. Paul) were Franken territory.  He won those counties by about 3, 14 and 18 points in the initial count.

Coleman should pull this out.  Any gain Franken gets from the Minneapolis votes should be offset by the two exurban MSP counties.

[Ronnie]

I am confident, though, that Democrats will find a way to steal this election, in either court or the senate.

I hope so...

You advocate fraud?

[Lunar]

In his favor he does, we've had this conversation and his support of democracy is conditional.

I'm not so confident in the Democrat's ability to steal.

[Хahar 🤔]

I am confident, though, that Democrats will find a way to steal this election, in either court or the senate.

I hope so...

You advocate fraud?

As Tweed said, this election was within the system's margin of error. If it comes down to a random guess (as it has), then yes, I support fraud.

[Ronnie]

I am confident, though, that Democrats will find a way to steal this election, in either court or the senate.

I hope so...

You advocate fraud?

As Tweed said, this election was within the system's margin of error. If it comes down to a random guess (as it has), then yes, I support fraud.

Hm, so you support breaking the law in support of your cause?  That sure makes a lot of sense.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I am confident, though, that Democrats will find a way to steal this election, in either court or the senate.

I hope so...

You advocate fraud?

As Tweed said, this election was within the system's margin of error. If it comes down to a random guess (as it has), then yes, I support fraud.

Hm, so you support breaking the law in support of your cause?  That sure makes a lot of sense.

You didn't already know this? These people said ACORN was doing no wrong by committing registration fraud, so is it a shock that they are hoping Franken steals this one?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I am confident, though, that Democrats will find a way to steal this election, in either court or the senate.

I hope so...

You advocate fraud?

As Tweed said, this election was within the system's margin of error. If it comes down to a random guess (as it has), then yes, I support fraud.

Hm, so you support breaking the law in support of your cause?  That sure makes a lot of sense.

You didn't already know this? These people said ACORN was doing no wrong by committing registration fraud, so is it a shock that they are hoping Franken steals this one?

Because ACORN WAS committing no wrong other than perhaps having poorly designed rules for paying workers. They paid workers per registration, so some made up bogus registrations to collect more money. ACORN suspected many of these were bogus, but that's largely irrelevant since they were required by law to turn them in no matter how obviously and blatantly false they were. ACORN was not committing fraud, rather they were the ones being defrauded.

[Lunar]

Anyone know why Franken didn't take the issue right to court?  Why not?

I am confident, though, that Democrats will find a way to steal this election, in either court or the senate.

I hope so...

You advocate fraud?

As Tweed said, this election was within the system's margin of error. If it comes down to a random guess (as it has), then yes, I support fraud.

Hm, so you support breaking the law in support of your cause?  That sure makes a lot of sense.

You didn't already know this? These people said ACORN was doing no wrong by committing registration fraud, so is it a shock that they are hoping Franken steals this one?

These people?


Who is it?

 crips or?

soros?

[Sam Spade]

As of today's update...

Counties to Be Completed
Beltrami (1 precinct) - Star Tribune has reported no change in this precinct already.
Brown (100%) - Star Tribune has already reported this.  SOS hasn't.
Dodge (40% or 6 precincts)
Hennepin (35 precincts) - Pretty much all precincts are located in urban Minneapolis.
Le Sueur (61% or 14 precincts)
Ramsey (15 precincts) - Pretty much outer ring St. Paul suburbs.  All of urban St. Paul has reported.
Rock (100%)
Scott (100%)
Winona (100%)
Wright (100%)

Update (Using My Method)
SOS
Coleman: 1,100,922 (1,103,291)
Franken: 1,105,030 (1,107,528)

Coleman: +344 (+215)

Actual Changes (With Assumptions in Parentheses)
Coleman: +112 (+21)
Franken: +157 (+46)
Total Change: Franken +45 (Franken +25)

Challenge Gap (With Assumptions in Parentheses)
Coleman (CH by Franken): -2481 (-2390)
Franken (CH by Coleman): -2655 (-2544)
Total Gap: Franken +174 (Franken +154)

Non-Subtracted Challenges
Coleman: 485
Franken: 426

Actual Total (With Challenge Gap Included, Assumptions in Parentheses)
Coleman +170 (Coleman +190)

[agcatter]

If Coleman wins the recount, the only way Frankin win is for some kind of court ruling in effect giving him the election - doubtful the courts would do anything to overturn a result in which Franken never led in the original result or recount.

The only other possibility would be Reid and his caucus trying to seat Frankin.  That's definitely not happening.  It would be a PR nightmare for Dems but beyond that, assuming Chambliss wins today, that's 41 Republican votes and I guarantee 41 SOLID votes filibustering any blatant power grab by Reid.  Snowe, Collins, Specter would absolutely be on board on this one.

Franken's last hope is some kind of crazy court ruling.  Even that wouldn't go down well considering the count.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I wonder what precisely the public reaction would be to the Senate seating Franken if Coleman is declared the winner.

[agcatter]

Public reaction would not be good and I doubt President elect Obama would go for it.  It would be such a partisan naked power grab that it would undermine Obama's reach across the divide pledge.  There will be issues down the road where, despite the Democratic margin in the senate, he will need to peal off a few Republicans.  Trying to steal this seat for Frankin would make that harder.  Besides, if Chambliss wins today, Dems aren't going to reach 60 in the senate anyway.  Grabbing Coleman's seat for Al Franken wouldn't be worth the grief.  I doubt it's even being considered.

[agcatter]

I might add that if Martin upsets tonight, Reid will be tempted to grab the seat.  I still think it won't be attempted because peoplewould see it for what it was and the picture is too ugly.

[Lunar]

I'm not sure if Reid even wants 60.  He, along with Schumer, want to appease the netroots that he at least tried to get it.  But come 2010, you want to be able to blame at least some of your problems on obstructionist Republicans.  Otherwise, every little thing that gets worse (crime, education, economy) will be because of the largely meaningless "blank check" (the public won't understand cloture votes).

[agcatter]

Lunar, good point.  That is what Michael Barone was saying yesterday.

[Sam Spade]

No one with any sense wants Franken on their "team".  That, and the fact that after today, 60 seats will no longer be a option and the fact that such a maneuver would be bound to infuriate the other side (probably the moderate Repubs too) leans strongly towards not using such a manuever.

[Sam Spade]

But come 2010, you want to be able to blame at least some of your problems on obstructionist Republicans.  Otherwise, every little thing that gets worse (crime, education, economy) will be because of the largely meaningless "blank check" (the public won't understand cloture votes).

It'll be near impossible to do anyway even without 60.  Public perception will be that Democrats control everything, whether you like it or not, for good or for bad.  You can only pull that gambit in divided government (see 1948/1996, for example), at least historically.

Public perception now is that Republicans control everything - though this is, of course, not true - but the Bush administration has zero talent in relating to people that it is otherwise, so it is, in fact, reality.

[Lunar]

There are three big pieces of news just out now, from a Franken campaign press briefing, that could potentially signal a comeback for him in this long-running election vote-count:

• Under the campaign's methodology, Franken narrowed the margin against Norm Coleman yesterday down to 50 votes, compared to 73 at the start of business yesterday and 215 going into the recount, with about 7% of the vote left to be counted. A swing of 23 votes in one day is definitely good news -- as we noted yesterday, Franken needs something on that order. The question now is what correctable errors are to be found in the remaining votes, which remains a total unknown.

• Another big piece of news: Secretary of State Marc Ritchie has sent out a letter to local election officials telling them to separate out the rejected absentee ballots according to what reasons were used to discard them. This could be a sign that his office is taking seriously the Franken camp's contention that roughly 1,000 absentee ballots may have been wrongly thrown out by clerical errors, and should be re-admitted -- or he's just diligently preparing for the inevitable litigation over this matter.

• And an added bonus: Officials in the town of Maplewood, which Franken carried, say they've found about 200 ballots that weren't counted at all up to now, due to a machine breakdown, and were just discovered. Franken could conceivably get a net gain of one or two-dozen votes from these ballots. Elias wasn't even aware of this going into the call -- he was informed of it by a local reporter seeking comment.

The initial stage of the recount, of manually counting all the ballots and separating out challenges, is expected to end this week. Next up, this goes to the state canvassing board that will review all those challenges -- many of them frivolous -- and will provide a test of just how correct the Franken campaign's methodology has been. After that...who knows.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/

[minionofmidas]

Maplewood is a St Paul suburb of 35,000.

The wiki article has only this to add to the standard statistical crap...

"Politics

Maplewood's Mayor (Diana Longrie) and Council (Rebecca Cave, Erik Hjelle, Kathy Junemann, and Will Rossbach) have garnered metro-area attention over the last year for a number of issues. Chief among these issues are the firings, resignations, and re-organizational plan that eliminated some positions."

lol

[minionofmidas]

http://electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/20081104/SelectPrecinct.asp?M=P&rq=62Ramsey

[Хahar 🤔]

I am confident, though, that Democrats will find a way to steal this election, in either court or the senate.

I hope so...

You advocate fraud?

As Tweed said, this election was within the system's margin of error. If it comes down to a random guess (as it has), then yes, I support fraud.

Hm, so you support breaking the law in support of your cause?  That sure makes a lot of sense.

Insofar as there's not real way of knowing the winner, yes.

[agcatter]

The precinct in question was carried by Franken by 6% so we are probably talking about 10 to 12 votes here.  Not a game changer by any means.  However, finding votes at the very end scares me.  Sends me back to King County, Washington in 2006.  They just kept finding Democratic votes until they had the lead.  On the other hand, this is what a recount is supposed to detect, legitimate problems with the count.  I am sure this is on the up and up as the recount seems to have been very orderly.  However, if more votes suddenly appear at the end, I'll start being suspicious.  With optical scanning, new votes will have to be found.  The optical scans have proven too accurate for Franken to win without "new' votes.