• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

Franken narrowly trails in Minnesota counting.

gdnp said:
Doesn't sound to hopeful for Franken. The recount seems to be following the original pretty closely. If he's only picked up 100 votes from 60% it will be hard to get 115 more from 40%

From what I saw of the disputed ballots I didn't have much trouble deciding. In most cases the voter's intent was either pretty obvious or pretty muddled.
Click to expand...
There are 1,525 challenge ballots between the campaigns and much of the recount has been in Republican leaning districts.

I didn't vote for either, but I don't want Sen. Coleman returning.
 
One thing the problems with this very close races for senator has shown is that the US is still very susceptible to a repeat of the 2000 election problems in the event of a close race for the president.

The problem seems to be fairly significant. Assume the race for president was going to be decided by Minnesota and the election was as close as the senate race is. Neither presidential candidate could be working full out to get his transition team in place. The winner of a race as close as the Minnesota done with paper ballots can not be definitively determined. There seems to be just too much ambiguity with ballots and counting procedures for humans to reliably count millions of ballots with the kind of precision required. So it all ends up in the courts again. No matter what the procedures, the supporters of the losing side will feel that they have been screwed and faith in the impartiality of the judicial system will be undermined.

And there is even the outside chance of government destabilization as the chaotic environment encourages violence.

It would be nice if these problems could be fixed at some point. I would have thought that eight years would have been enough to solve most of these problems but given what is going on in Minnesota and Alaska that would seem not to be the case.
 
Coleman's lead increased to 180.

http://www.startribune.com/politics...yqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUX

IIRC there was a case in New Hampshire (or somewhere in New England) in the mid-20th century where it was even closer (10-20 votes) and each recount came up with a different winner. When no winner was declared by the swearing in day the Senate declared the seat "vacant" and a run-off election was held.

Franken would probably fair better in a run-off, since Sen. Dean Barkley (I) took 15% (or so) of the vote.
 
Last edited:
davefoc said:
It would be nice if these problems could be fixed at some point. I would have thought that eight years would have been enough to solve most of these problems but given what is going on in Minnesota and Alaska that would seem not to be the case.
Click to expand...
Hey Dave, you do realize that the problem is one that is, in part, inherent to quantifying large numbers. No system is error free. There will always be error bars.
 
RandFan said:
Hey Dave, you do realize that the problem is one that is, in part, inherent to quantifying large numbers. No system is error free. There will always be error bars.
Click to expand...

well, if the frequency of errors drops to a number lower than the number of ballots (one in a billion), then there should rarely be a problem. The question is whether it is possible to build a system with an error rate that low. Obviously not when dealing with paper ballots. The errors in the disputed ballots all appear to be related to errors by the voter.
 
Honestly, I don't much care how this goes, one way or the other. I would, however love to see the vein in O'Reilly's forehead finally burst if Franken were to actually win.
 
It would be nice if these problems could be fixed at some point. I would have thought that eight years would have been enough to solve most of these problems but given what is going on in Minnesota and Alaska that would seem not to be the case.
Click to expand...

The system seems to be functioning as smoothly in Minnesota as you can expect.
You will always have, I don't care what kind of system you have, people who screw up their ballots through sheer ignrorance, and a few damaged ballots.
davefoc, you seem to expect perfection in a system designed by a Human Being. Forget it.
The election in Minnesota is just freaking close, that's all.
 
I'd like to know what the real recount is. Apparently the challenged ballots can make the recount look skewed.

Currently Coleman is gaining. But that can just be because he challenged legit ballots just to skew the recount. If that is true I wonder if there is a plan in there, such as making it look like a sudden batch of votes for Franken at the end changed the outcome.

Could Coleman be that devious? I don't know what he is thinking.

Are people that dumb to fall for something like that when the reason for the change at the end is discussed? Yes.

Or is there something else going on like Coleman will claim Franken's win is based on questionable ballots even if they aren't?

Or is the report which said, the ballots Coleman has challenged are not irregular while the ones Franken challenged are, just a partisan report?

Or is Franken just falling further behind regardless of the ballots challenged and therefore removed from the current count?


Sources of what led to my questions:
Nov 19, Notes from the recount….
Based on early returns from the recount, it appears that a fair amount of the change in vote totals is the result of challenged ballots. A challenged ballot is taken out of the mix, temporarily at least, and the effect is to reduce the total for the candidate who got that vote.
Click to expand...

But I can't find the comment I read about most of Franken's challenges being more reasonable and instead found this comment:
In Minn. recount, disputed Senate ballots could quickly shift margin between Franken, Coleman
"In my mind — I can only say in my mind — it was pretty obvious what the voter's intent was with almost all of the ballots they challenged," said Sam Modderman, the auditor in Kandiyohi County, where Coleman lost four votes and Franken held even.

Pipestone County Auditor Joyce Steinhoff said she saw several challenges she thought were frivolous, but she decided not to push back too hard. "I'd rather have it overruled by the canvassing board, then have them say I deprived them of their right to challenge," she said.
Click to expand...
These were individual voting precincts and not comments generic to the whole batch of challenged ballots. But if generally true and Coleman has ~130 more challenged ballots than Franken today then Coleman's lead is much smaller than it appears.
 
Last edited:
UserGoogol said:
It should be noted that Nate notes in that posting that that's 27 votes with a fairly high margin of error. The odds are fairly close to 50-50, but Franken gets slightly more votes on average.
Click to expand...

True enough. I think this is an election we can point to for YEARS when somebody says "I'm not going to vote, my one vote can't make a difference."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom