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

[Lunar]

I mean, he's not actually leading by 316.

I assume that number doesn't include the 600 challenges Franken's campaign gave up on today?  Coleman's lead should jump to >900 tomorrow morning if it clicks through then.

[Lunar]

Sam, does your method distinguish between different types of challenges (sorry if that has already been addressed)?

Like, the difference between challenging a ballot that was initially ruled invalid, ruled a no-vote, or ruled for the opposing candidate?  Like, I imagine that Coleman has challenged at least a few more McCain-I'llLeaveSenateBlank votes than the reverse for Franken.  Not a lot, but still, there are many kinds of challenges.

[Lunar]

Thanks Sam for that clarification.  I hope you took bathroom breaks

The Franken campaign says he is up 10 votes.

Uh, yeah.  Sure he is.

I mean, Al's probably down.

But why is the Coleman campaign so silent on Franken's numbers?  My understanding that it is supposedly a pretty objective measuring which simply records what the on-sight judge initially states on the ballot or something of that order.  The bias probably comes from...ah, what's the word, subconscious misreporting/interpretation at the local level.*  Is the Coleman campaign also not doing this? 


*There's at least a 50% chance they're skewing the numbers at the top too.  Shouldn't the Franken campaign release their entire excel spreadsheet to reporters if they want to spin the news?  I mean, I'm pretty sure they're looking at a simple excel spreadsheet.


Thus I'm uncertain.  I assume the truth is less favorable to Franken but close enough that Coleman doesn't want to disprove it and make himself look bad.

[Lunar]

Actually, Franken is up more than 10.  I believe the number is 27 and that number is solid.  Nate Silver said so.

That's getting fairly annoying.  He's changed some time ago to show Coleman leading.  I've replied in bold letters telling you how that's not his prediction every time you do this (this is the third time), yet you persist.  It's fun to make fun of Silver Worshipers (I've done so), but acting like a wall is ineffective sir.  I'm not going to respond when you ignore this post and chime in a few pages later about the 27 number.

His model was solid but subject to criticism (like all models) and obviously subject to change.

Nate Silver, last week, provided eight different models on the election and in seven of them Coleman leads and in one of them Franken leads by 3 votes.

[Lunar]

There's no reason to dispute what the Franken people say if it isn't true.  Most of what's being said right now is only to keep the partisans going and the money flowing.

I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between.  Why wouldn't Coleman dispute it to hurt Franken's partisans and stop Franken's money from flowing though?  Coleman's campaign has been oddly silent on the matter.

And again, I question why the Franken campaign can't send out a 300kb spreadsheet with reported on-sight judges' opinions to media outlets instead of just broadcasting the results of said spreadsheet.  It would seem if the facts truly were on Al's side, he'd be pumping out the details instead of just offering vague, unjustified platitudes.

But on the other hand, again, Coleman's campaign has shown no hesitation to refute other claims made by the Franken campaign, why would they be so quiet on this one?

Actually, Franken is up more than 10.  I believe the number is 27 and that number is solid.  Nate Silver said so.

That's getting fairly annoying.  He's changed some time ago to show Coleman leading. 

Why would The Almighty have to change a prediction?

Because he's not as egotistical as his supporters (or you).  He just runs the numbers and provides a slanted interpretation of them, yet still provides the best numbers of any mainstream analyst.   He predicted the 2008 election perfectly and did better than any pollster a number of times during the primary.  This has given him (to his supporters) a bit of irrational legitimacy.  But his predictions shouldn't be discarded simply because a bunch of idiots worship him.  They should be taken apart and criticized and not shallowly mocked.  I mean, what if we all said Oh, because Samspade said it, it MUST be true! instead of actually looking at what he said?

A better question would be why he isn't highlighting his change of prediction to the Huffington Post or why he failed to ever weigh in on the Georgia primary race.  Well, we already know the answer to that, Nate is 100% Democrat and doesn't give bad news to Democrats unless it's buried.

That doesn't excuse the constant 538-bashing as a form of self gratification (what you're doing), mind you.  BRTD accurately compared this to the constant "Obama will win Kansas" sarcastic remarks that got quickly old.  Nate Silver is an extremely humble, nerdy guy.  People take his predictions too far, but I'd rather people take his predictions too far than anything else out there in the mainstream internet (because there isn't anything better).  I have many critiques of the guy, but hammering him for self-pleasure is just obnoxious, especially if you're A) Wrong B) Repeating yourself.  Might as well be intelligent in one's snide remarks, eh?

[Lunar]

Why wouldn't Coleman dispute it to hurt Franken's partisans and stop Franken's money from flowing though?

Do you seriously believe that Franken partisans would listen to anything Coleman's campaign might say on this subject?

If I know anything about politics, the truth of the matter lies here:  Coleman is ahead nearly all methods of counting, but if all the breaks fall Franken's way in terms of challenges (not to mention the lost ballots), they lead by 10.

First of all, I am suspect of your claim that Franken donors either won't listen to the media or the media won't report Coleman's numbers alongside Franken's.  I mean, I can see articles in Politico and HuffPost and even TPM that readily report both sides' numbers in most circumstances but only report Franken's numbers on this item.   Maybe Kos will ignore Coleman's claims (doubtful), but most mainstream liberal news places will report both sides claims and then partisan spin on them.  Coleman, by not refuting their claims, is preventing any spin and is sort of quietly

Secondly, why wouldn't Coleman want to encourage his own supporters and donors?

Well, the answer to both is that the truth is depressing to both Coleman and Franken supporters.  Franken isn't ahead and Coleman isn't ahead by >100 votes.  Coleman prefers the official number that includes challenges and Franken prefers his biased number that includes biased assumptions.

[Lunar]

Wright County is a sh!thole. It's a frequent laughingstock of Minneapolitians. Thank God so much of the filth that infest there got foreclosed and now lots of newly-built subdivisions have been transformed in virtual ghost towns. Serves those dipsh!ts right for taking subprime loans.

I'm sick of this suburban bad, urban good crap.  If Wright County is such a bad place, why are people moving there?   And why are people fleeing places like Ramsey County?

People like to live where they like to live.  A place isn't good or bad just because you don't like to live that way.

suburban=bad, urban=good is a fundamental to BRTD's philosophy and thinking.  Might as well get over your sickness.

I'm inclined to agree with him, although for vastly different reasons and less passion. 

[Lunar]

And if you truly don't have a problem with Silver then the constant sarcasm and mocking of him is a rather bizarre way to show it.

Mocking. The. Way. His. Admirers. Act.

In this thread it's mostly BRTD that adores him and then sarcastic comments by you for the rest:
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=88765.0

Where are you getting this from dude.  Your sarcastic, repetitive assertions about the way his supporters act greatly outnumbers his supporters, and should tell you something about yourself

[Lunar]

Uh, it's the thread in question.   You're making stupid remarks about how we all worshiped his 27 number when it's clear that we didn't.

[Lunar]

Anyway, that 133 votes is heating up.  Apparently they know the exact envelope that's missing and the envelope possesses a Franken +37 margin.  Election officials are debating about just using the election-night totals for that precinct instead of the recount.

[Lunar]

And you thought Democrats couldn't steal an election.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/12/05/moreballotsfound/


During their search this morning in a Minneapolis warehouse, they found a thin plastic bag that contains about 10 uncounted overseas military ballots from another precinct.

Minneapolis elections director Cindy Reichert says it's "clear the ballots were mishandled."

[Lunar]

Franken's team declares they are 4 votes ahead if the missing envelope is found (not sure if it includes the most recent plastic bag warehouse votes) and every challenges is rejected.

[Lunar]

Franken's team declares they are 4 votes ahead if the missing envelope is found (not sure if it includes the most recent plastic bag warehouse votes) and every challenges is rejected.

Coleman has 95 more challenges than Franken, the missing ballots are +37 Franken. Even if all ten of these military ballots are for Franken, that's only a net of 142 votes for Franken; he's behind by somewhere around 200.

Not so quick there.  Not all challenges were created equal.  If Franken challenges more ballots that were initially ruled invalid (a decent chance), then his challenges don't become Coleman votes.  These challenges aren't all Franken or Coleman votes that were initially ruled for the other guy. 

[Lunar]

Using Sam's methodology, Coleman still has breathing room.  I'm less confident.  Does that number include election-night totals for those missing ballots?  I assume it does.

Franken could scrap together a few more votes too if he can get those absentee ballots counted.

It will come down to who has the better challenges and what types of ballots are challenged more often (were they initially ruled as vote or a no-vote on election night?).

[Lunar]

What do you guys think?

[Lunar]

Franken.

He voted Barkley (or Aldrich), changed his mind to Aldrich (or Barkley), then changed his mind a last time to Franken.

Or maybe he marked his two preferences...

I mean, it's a Franken vote, but is it clear?

[Lunar]

This one was challenged because the voter is retarded

[Lunar]

My understanding is that Minnesota law likes to assume that the person did in fact intend to vote for a candidate.

But is an honest 80% confidence about the vote sufficient?

No clue

[Lunar]

FRANKEN WINS AT COURT

[Lunar]

After 122 ballots, all of which were challenged by Franken:

+78 Coleman, +14 Franken, +30 Other

A live feed of the canvassing board: http://www.twincities.com/ci_11244046?nclick_check=1

10% success rate on challenges is phenomenal, I think.

Is this a SRS?

[Lunar]

After 122 ballots, all of which were challenged by Franken:

+78 Coleman, +14 Franken, +30 Other

A live feed of the canvassing board: http://www.twincities.com/ci_11244046?nclick_check=1

10% success rate on challenges is phenomenal, I think.

Is this a SRS?

SRS?

simple random sample

[Lunar]

The judges don't seem to be very strict

[Lunar]

The Minnesota Supreme Court just finished hearing arguments on Norm Coleman's lawsuit to stop the counting of ballots that are found to have been rejected due to clerical errors, and here's the deal: It didn't look great for Coleman.

Things started off on the wrong foot for Coleman's attorney Roger Magnuson right when he opened with political sloganeering, saying that the state canvassing board had "accepted an invitation to Florida in 2008." He was immediately interrupted by justices telling him that this is not Florida, and they don't need to be told about Florida. Things only went downhill from there.

Franken's lawyer William Pentelovitch got his share of rough questions, but they were generally of a different character -- that is, asking him to explore various ramifications of his arguments and to answer objections to them, rather than direct attacks on his entire logical underpinnings. Only one justice of the five hearing the case, Lorie Skjerven Gildea, was outright hostile to him.

If we're going entirely by which campaign had a harder time with the judge's questions -- which can often be true, but is far from being a perfect predictor -- Coleman would have to be considered the underdog in winning this lawsuit. But surprises can still definitely happen.

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

[Lunar]

Ok I've decided that I'm more interested in finding out Sam's super mega secret and making him grumpy enough to become an official Republican than I am against Franken, so I've switched my internet support the (D).

[Lunar]

Ok I've decided that I'm more interested in finding out Sam's super mega secret and making him grumpy enough to become an official Republican than I am against Franken, so I've switched my internet support the (D).

Well it seems somewhat obvious that he's going to leave the Forum if Franken wins.

Really?  That bad?

Well, then that's not part of my desire, but I do want to find out this mega secret