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

[Lunar]

woooow

Both campaigns have completely given into challenging ballots as a propaganda tool

[Lunar]

Guys, this occurs to me after conversation.

If any of the ballots that were initially ruled for one candidate or ruled invalid were, upon inspection, ruled for the opposing side, the other side is guaranteed to challenge.

This recount, pre-challenges, does almost nothing.  Because both sides are going to challenge anything where the judge on the scene reverses the initial ruling!!.  I mean, Coleman is challenging perfectly unquestionable McCain/Franken and McCain/[no one] votes simply under the guise of voter intent (and Franken is doing stupid stuff too).  Both sides are using challenges as a propaganda tool and any vote that is remotely questionable is going to be challenged if votes that are unquestionable are challenged!

Franken is logically expected to gain since Democrats make more errors than Republicans.  But any time these misread ballots or a "determination of intent" occurs that might override the original result, the Coleman/Franken campaign is going go challenge it!

That means we learn almost nothing from this initial recount.  Because if an official finds a ballot and wants to reverse it in favor of Franken from the original count, for example, Coleman's campaign is 150% likely to challenge it.

The only changes that occur right now (99.99%) are the the percentages of challenged ballots.

I think it's wrong to immediately determine this as a Coleman lead (or the inverse, despite what 538 says).

[Lunar]

If any of the ballots that were initially ruled for one candidate or ruled invalid were, upon inspection, ruled for the opposing side, the other side is guaranteed to challenge.

Actually, that's incorrect.  A lot of gains and losses have occurred where no candidate has challenged. 

Well, practically guaranteed.  With their wide challenge nets, it would seem logical to challenge anything where the machine and judge disagree.  Of course if the person wrote "NORM COLEMAN NORM COLEMAN NORM COLEMAN NORM COLEMAN" all over the ballot with a crayon...

[Lunar]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Shockingly, they're all Gregoire supporters. Odd, eh?

Shockingly, Rossi supporters don't actually have any evidence of fraud, yet keep implying that there was. Odd, eh?

Wait a minute...I think I just found some Rossi votes in my boxer drawer. Is it too late to get them in?

Your guy lost, twice. Get over it.
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If you get over Bush winning twice (despite the 2000 result)

[Lunar]

BTW check this one for a laugh: http://senaterecount.startribune.com/media/ballotPDFs/Olmsted_Kalmar_challenged%20ballot%202.pdf

I think that's a pretty clear Franken vote upon looking at the rest of the ballot

[Lunar]

http://senaterecount.startribune.com/media/ballotPDFs/washington_WoodburyP7_challengedballot49.pdf

The Franken/Bachmann voter...

Clearly someone who needs to be locked in a mental institution or shot immediately...

Also someone who thinks you're supposed to trace the edge of the bubble.

Most likely someone just voting randomly

[Lunar]

Some challenges are ones with no senate vote (thus no vote was removed) too, on the basis of inconsistency.

[Lunar]

Sam, I don't know why you are even bothering with this.  The great Nate Silver has already said Frankin wins by 27 votes.  Therefore, it's over.  Coleman should concede immediately.

He currently projects Coleman to have a slight lead

[Lunar]

Supposedly this is not an overvote. It's for Coleman: http://senaterecount.startribune.com/media/ballotPDFs/chippewa_claracity_challengedballot1.pdf

Can we all agree that many Coleman challengers are complete fucking morons?

Hahaha.  This person has a Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde thing going on (look at president too).

[Lunar]

Check page two of this ballot:

http://senaterecount.startribune.com/media/ballotPDFs/Olmsted_W3P6_challenged%20ballot%2041.pdf

How does a judge loving sexual abuse constitute an identifying mark i wonder?  Unless it is proven that only one person knows about the Judge's ... uh, dark side, but even then, the judge himself could have written that.

[Lunar]

Probably someone pissed about a ruling the judge made.

This brought up an interesting question: Does it count as identifying the ballot if someone writes themselves in for all the minor offices? (As many have done. Almost all Coleman supporters interestingly.)

The Franken campaign has argued this but I remember reading that the judges generally feel that it's not sufficient proof (you and your friend might agree to write your friend in for everything or you might be writing in your sixth grade teacher)

[Lunar]

I thought it was 270.  Doesn't matter however.  It's already been determined that the final results will be Frankin by 27 votes.  You know, regression analysis by the world's foremost statistician.  Just ask him.

Jesus that comment is asinine considering that Silver said a few days ago (and I posted in bold in reply to your last snarky comment) that Coleman currently comes ahead slightly in his model. Silver no longer predicts a Franken win

Silver no longer predicts a Franken win

Silver no longer predicts a Franken win

It was a probability based model, it was going to change as more data was inputted.

Sorry for the overdone dramatics, but c'mon man

[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.

[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?

[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).

[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/

[Lunar]

As we noted below, there's been a potentially huge development in the Franken recount: 171 new ballots have been found in the St. Paul suburb of Maplewood, reportedly because a machine breakdown prevented them from being counted the first time but the hand count easily picked them up.

So is there any chance that this could change the outcome?

The answer, like pretty much everything else in this recount, is a definite maybe.

It's simply not conceivable that these ballots alone would deliver Franken the win -- he's not going to carry all of them, but would instead get a small edge. As the local site MinnPost.com calculates, these ballots could give Franken a net gain of 12 votes, assuming they break in the same percentages as the rest of the precinct did.

But the found ballots could give Franken a big lift. The Franken camp's current calculation is that he trails Norm Coleman by 50 votes in this recount as of last night. So if the MinnPost calculation is accurate, this would narrow Franken's deficit to a mere 38 votes -- a margin that could be much more plausibly reversed in the remaining 7% of the vote yet to be recounted.

Of course, there are a whole bunch of other variables still at play, so the net impact of the new found ballots is tough to predict. But in a race as close as this one, they could potentially prove to be decisive.

Late Update: The Coleman campaign is calling foul, claiming the total ballots for this precinct now exceed the number of voters who officially signed in by 31 people -- and they're also saying these new ballots would apparently give Franken a net pickup of 37 votes, though it's not exactly clear how they concluded this. The county is looking into the situation.


http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/could_newly_discovered_ballots.php

Remember Franken's tally (biased but probably more accurate than a lot of numbers out there) has Coleman at +50...

[Lunar]

Clearly the Franken total is less biased than my results... 

Oh, I forgot about your numbers sir.

[Lunar]

article on the fishiness potential:
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/35382149.html?elr=KArks8c7PaP3E77K_3c::D3aDhUec7PaP3E77K_0c::D3aDhUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiU

[Lunar]

I say go for the attention-whore thread.  It's what I would do if I were in your shoes (including joining the GOP in protest).

[Lunar]

Does that include the +37?

[Lunar]

Late Update: Elias also announced that the campaign is withdrawing 633 of their ballot challenges that they've concluded have no chance at all of being upheld, the first step by either campaign in pulling back on that particularly nutty element of this recount. This also means that Coleman's apparent lead under other methodologies, which exclude all challenged ballots, will be increasing by around 600 votes.

via TPM

[Lunar]

I don't know where you get +59 from. They had said -50, and now +22. But 72 - 37 = +35. Obviously the +37 from the found ballots are a special case.

Misadded.  +35 would still require Franken to win every challenge made today.

Soo.. not that unlikely given the nature of challenges in this race?

[Lunar]

TPM's update:

Franken Camp Sounds Alarm: Votes Missing In Minneapolis!

Just when you thought you might know what's going on in Minnesota...

The Franken campaign, which has been voicing concern all through this recount about missing ballots, just put out a very urgent press release alleging that 133 ballots are missing from a single precinct -- which just so happens to be a solidly-Dem precinct right in Minneapolis -- and calling upon the city's elections director to keep the recount officially open until this matter is resolved.

The county's initial election returns showed that Franken had a lead of 495 votes over Coleman, a nearly two-to-one-lead in this single precinct (Ward 3, Precinct 1). If these missing ballots are not recovered, it is quite possible that Franken could sustain a net loss in the vote count that would be enough to undo the campaign's claim of a 22-vote lead from this morning.

[Lunar]

With 98% of votes counted, Coleman leads by 316.

Let's get real sir, "leads" 

(I'm a Coleman supporter unless my original prediction of Franken +42 is the best one, in that case my allegiance switches to bragging rights)