Franken/Coleman Recount Nearly Tied
Looks like the end of the day Thursday might leave Coleman and Franken about even in the Minnesota recount.
As 538 noted in their lunchtime roundup, numbers are all over the place and guesses about who’s ”winning’ need to be taken with a grain of salt.*
The additional problem, as I discussed yesterday, is the original vs duplicated ballots.
According to Silver, ‘dozens’ of Coleman challenges have been put in the ‘blue folder’ to be dealt with later. Presumably, some of the Franken challenges that were ruled on will have to be taken out of the pile and rejudged.
How many Franken challenges need to be checked (and what their determination was) remains unclear.
(There’s also now a ‘green folder’, but no one seems to know what it’s for…)
Wow. For some reason I really want them to end the day with a nice clean tie. They’ve got six minutes; I wish they’d stop arguing!
Dang, fail:
However, the Strib guys have just pointed out that the 5000 or so withdrawn challenges have yet to be awarded to either candidate. Those will be mostly votes the candidate had on election night that were temporarily removed from his total.
I think it’s fair to say that this thing is going to court. For an entire host of reasons.
[The Strib guys are chatting about the plate of cookies they've put on their table in solidarity with the cookies on the Canvassing Board's table. I lived in MN for years, but I swear I understand Australian humor better than Minnesotan.]
* - here’s my grain: Franken had two days of challenges, and Coleman appears to have more challenges overall. It only took one day for Franken to catch up to Coleman. Unless Coleman has a very good day tomorrow, it seems that Franken will have the lead at the end of the recount. Keep the blue folder/procedural challenges in mind, though. We’re all of those pro-Coleman votes? We just don’t know.
Sphere: Related Content