MPR has a great piece showing some of the ballots that have been challenged so far. This is a great primer on exactly why we need this recount. Our enlightened state law says that voter intent determines who to count a vote for. Our electronic vote-scanning machines are a good shortcut, but this is not a test on whether voters can operate a scantron machine. In a close election, such as this one, we go through by hand and figure out who each voter intended to vote for.
Here’s an example of a clear vote for Franken that was not counted by the voting machines:
More accurately, he’s made big gains compared to the size of the Coleman lead. Everything seems magnified when the race is this close.
Yesterday, Franken gained a net 43 votes, to decrease the Coleman lead to 172. About 15 percent of the votes have been recounted. If we extrapolate — and take this with a grain of salt, because we really shouldn’t extrapolate — Franken should have enough votes to win. By my math, he’d end up leading by 63 votes.
There’s one catch, though: challenged ballots. So far, Franken has challenged 106 ballots, and Coleman has challenged 115. How these challenges are resolved will almost definitely decide the winner of the Senate race.
On day 1 of the recount, a new twist. The Ramsey County district court has upheld the Franken campaign’s request to gain access to data on rejected absentee ballots. Here’s the key sections from the ruling:
With each passing hour, the Franken Campaign is irreparably harmed in its efforts to ensure that each valid vote is properly counted and to prepare for the procedures that will decide this election. By contrast, the County of Ramsey will suffer no harm from providing information that, even absent plaintiff’s request, it must organize and maintain.
The court has really gotten to the crux of the matter. This is about making sure every vote is counted. Absentee ballots that were improperly rejected should be heard.
This is simply outrageous. GOP chair Ron Carey does not care about letting Minnesota voters have a choice. He said that “Minnesota voters will decide this election,” but then declared Norm Coleman the winner for a third time.Let’s be clear — again. The will of the voters has not been completely heard yet; that’s why we have a recount. Norm Coleman has not won this election until the votes are counted.
The media, unfortunately for Mr. Carey, didn’t bite. Carey claimed that Franken was being “presumptuous” in traveling to Washington to meet with Democratic Senators. In response, reporters asked: “Aren’t you being presumptuous by saying that Norm Coleman has won this election twice? In fact, the state of Minnesota has not declared anyone the winner.” That reporter was absolutely correct — there is no winner until all ballots have been properly counted.
The most disturbing part was Carey’s answer to that question. Carey seemed to imply that a Franken victory was absolutely impossible, despite the fact that the estimated voting-machine errors will have caused 6000 ballots to go uncounted, and Coleman leads by just over 200 votes. This raises a serious question for me: If Franken wins, which is clearly a possibility, will Norm Coleman accept the people’s decision? He has already said he would step aside to let the “healing” begin — will he?
Watch the whole press conference, courtesy of The UpTake:
That’s the Star Tribune’s headline for the recount, on the front page of the Sunday paper today. But it must be emphasized, once again, that this is no rematch. This is simply a more accurate depiction of the match.
In other words, we the voters have spoken. We are not getting another chance to vote again; that’s not how it works. We have already elected either Franken or Coleman our next Senator. The question is, who did we really choose?
Since it’s Sunday, how about a football analogy? When one team is close to a first down, and it’s too close to call by just eyeballing it, we don’t redo the last play. No, we call out the “chain gang,” and measure more accurately whether the ball is just past the 1st-down mark or just shy of it. That’s what’s going on here: the play has been run. Now it’s time for the chain gang.
Since November 5th, when it was clear that state law required a recount in the Coleman-Franken Senate race, Coleman’s behavior has been nothing short of despicable. Indeed, it’s earned his widespread reproach, even from newspapers that initially endorsed him.
After first trying to force Franken out of the recount, saying it was time to let the state “heal,” Coleman has now turned to trying to undermine the integrity of the electoral process in Minnesota. He has filed injunctions and data practices requests, trying to call into question the competence and integrity of Minnesota’s election officials. The Minnesota Independent reports:
Over at Centrisity, Flash has the story, including a great map that helps make Coleman’s problem crystal clear. To see the map, please pay him a visit.
Flash quotes an MSNBC article explaining why Franken may be able to gain the lead:
The ballots that showed a presidential vote but no Senate vote are called the “undervote.” Statewide, more than 18,000 of those ballots came from counties won by Obama. About 6,100 were in counties won by Republican John McCain.
We do need to take this with a grain of salt, though, folks. Two things are important to remember here:
Al Franken 41
Norm Coleman 37
Dean Barkley 17
Undecided 5
MoE: +/- 4.6% [edit (7:30 AM): whoops. I had Al and Norm's numbers backwards earlier. Thanks, Aaron.]
I didn’t see any internal numbers from the Mason-Dixon or MPR polls, but I did for the PPP poll. It looks pretty good to me; there are two possibly iffy numbers in the crosstabs, but they’re not too bad, and their effects seem to cancel each other out. First, they find that 40% of respondents are Democrats, compared to 31% who are Republicans. I think that might be a bit too large a gap, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility, and definitely within the margin or error. Also, only 15% of respondents in the survey are from 18 to 29 years old. I think that’s a mistake, and the youth turnout this year will be huge, pushing Franken’s numbers up.
…with Obama headed for a dominant victory in the state, it looks like as of today his coattails would be enough to bring Franken across the finish line. What impact the lawsuit Coleman filed against Franken today and whatever else happens in the last five days of the election has remains to be seen.
This is a nailbiter down to the end. It’s anybody’s game — except Barkley’s — and each campaign could still do something to change the fate of the race.
An out-of-state reader emailed me to ask for my read on the Senate race. After responding to him, I thought I should share my thoughts with the rest of you, Dear Readers.
This is a really, really hard race to handicap. I still think Minnesota is still leaning very slightly towards Franken, but Coleman is a wily one, and he could easily pull this off. I don’t believe the most recent poll; I think this is pretty much a dead heat right now. That means the race will come down to a few criteria we can’t forecast until election day:
How large will Obama’s coattails for Franken be? He’ll definitely help to some extent, because of increased turnout, but there’s some concern about people who will just vote for Obama and not down the ticket.
Where will Dean Barkley’s support go? His supporters have been very “soft”; I think at the last count only 30% said they were firmly committed. If they stay with him, Franken’s in good shape, but if they break in large numbers for Coleman, which they could, he can win.
After suspending his negative ads, and now with his stunt suing Franken for a “misleading” ad, will Coleman’s campaign be viewed as ultimately positive or negative? His numbers really started tanking when voters decided he had gone too negative.
I know that really just throws out more problems, but unfortunately I think that’s all I can do right now. This is a true tossup, and either campaign could still win it or lose it, with messaging or with their ground game. Ultimately, I have faith that this year’s Democratic ground game is so good that it’s worth a couple of points at the polls.
What do you think? Leave your predictions in the comments.
There are two polls out today that show Republicans gaining in Minnesota. A SurveyUSA poll shows Erik Paulsen barely leading Ashwin Madia, 45-44, and a Rasmussen poll shows Norm Coleman leading Al Franken and Dean Barkley, 43-39-14.
If these polls are accurate, they’re good news for the Republicans. I’m withholding my judgement on that, though, because of some suspicious looking numbers in each.
Maps I use maps to show the political dynamics of each Congressional district in Minnesota.
The Incredible Shrinking GOP Voter apathy is hurting the GOP this year. But the party's sharp moves to the right may marginalize it for the next decade. I keep track of the indications that the GOP is becoming a fringe party for extremists.
[note: I am currently editing the category structure]
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Jeff Rosenberg | November 20, 2008
