Status of the Minnesota Senate race?

MattusMaximus

Intellectual Gladiator
MattusMaximus
Joined
Jan 26, 2006
Messages
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Has anyone heard anything lately on this? Last I heard the recount started almost two weeks ago...
 
The only one I couldn't work out was the last one. I counted three votes for Norm Coleman, one for Al Franken, and the last one was a toss-up between Coleman & Barkley. Were they really that difficult to work out?
 
P8 could be considered unclear, as the Coleman mark is the only one with an X through it. But it could be considered an attempt to say "no, not this one".

P10, though has ALL the vote marks with a X and a filled bubble. If those are discounted, it would be a completely blank ballot. Franken intent seems clear.

P11 is from someone with motor control issues, but there is an amazingly clean check next to the Coleman mark, which this voter could not have made. It seems that someone added that after the fact. Tampering? Well-meaning poll worker verifying the voter intent? Difficult to tell.

P17 is very clearly a narcissistic lunatic, and clearly for Coleman. I can't even figure out what the possible dispute over it would be.

P19 Has that infamous X over one bubble, with a 'write-in' for an already existing Coleman. Intent would seem clear to be voting for Coleman, but I could see an argument (weak, but possible) that the X was to 'enhance' the vote for Barkley.

1 definite Franken.

1 definite, 2 probable, 1 possible Coleman
 
Good grief, I do not envy the poor sods who have to dig through all that crap...
 
Anybody here remember Linda Ronstadt?

****
And so at last
All ballots cast
So it should be over now,
But we can’t seem to get past

Recount goes on
From dusk ‘till dawn
And still they keep screaming
‘Till we find out who has won

And they
Won’t stop the bickering
Their future’s on the line.
Still I think they’re
Gonna count votes
For a long, long time
 
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GodMark2 said:
P19 Has that infamous X over one bubble, with a 'write-in' for an already existing Coleman. Intent would seem clear to be voting for Coleman, but I could see an argument (weak, but possible) that the X was to 'enhance' the vote for Barkley.
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This one is definitely void as it contains two votes for one office.
 
gdnp said:
As of today Coleman's lead is down to 5 votes. The Minneapolis star tribune has a site where you can review each of the contested ballots yourself. The consensus opinion of those who have done so has Franken winning by 40 votes.
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Good grief. This is just amazing to me, to see the election come down to so few votes. Folks will be talking about Minnesota 2008 as a lesson in GOTV for decades to come...
 
I don't think we will really know how close this race is until the challenged votes are tallied. And I don't mean the absentee ballots to be reconsidered, I mean the candidate challenges.

The challenges were started by Coleman supposedly to give the news media a daily count showing him ahead. That was intended to make either challenging Franken's win appear reasonable should Franken win and Coleman challenge it, or, to give Coleman a claim Franken cheated to use to campaign against Franken from now until the next election should Franken win.

If you look at the sample challenges (they are online) you can see many are very frivolous. Franken responded by challenging back to keep the count more in line. The real count includes the challenged ballots since everyone seems to agree most challenges will be thrown out by the election board.

Could it be Franken who initiated the challenge ballot scheme? Don't know but everything I've read says it was Coleman. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd be willing to look at it. But the bottom line is we really don't know how close the race is until the challenged ballots are added in. It looks like Franken by 40 if you go by the public vote on the 6,700 challenged ballots on the Star Tribune report. But no way to know if people voted honestly there either.

And then we won't know the actual election result until the excluded then reinstated absentee ballots are counted.
 
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One recent report stated that some of the challenges had been withdrawn, but the votes hadn't been added back into the official tallies yet.

I also find it interesting that Coleman has contested counting the absentee ballots that were improperly excluded. The Minnesota supreme court has ruled against him, so it seems they will be counted. I find it curious that he would have done this before the disputed ballots were adjudicated. Presumably, he thinks that the absentee ballots will favor Franken, but since it seems that the vote tally will favor Franken after the disputed ballots are counted I would have expected him to want the absentee ballots counted. Unless he feels that he would have a better shot in a re-vote: he probably would.
 
My favorite ballot was the "Lizard People" ballot. Look it up on google news, but here's the brief synopsis. One voter wrote in "Lizard People" in several places on the ballot. i.e. for the Judge of the eleventeenth district, he filled in the "write in" oval, and wrote in "Lizard People".

In the Senate race, he filled in the Franken oval, but wrote "Lizard People" on the line.

Canvassing board decision:
overvote. No vote awarded. Commentary by election official was that if you end up making a joke out of vour ballot, it might not get counted. A man who claims to have cast the "Lizard People" ballot came forward and said it was meant to be a vote for Franken. However, I agree with the Canvassers' ruling.


Franken is now, officially, for the first time, in the lead. Meanwhile, improperly rejected absentee ballots are being put back in, which is expected to result in a net gain for Franken. That puts him in a good spot right now.

On the other hand, everyone acknowledges that some votes were counted twice during the recount, and it is impossible to figure out which ones. This could throw things for a loop, because the most reasonable solution would seem to me to be to go back to the election night totals in precincts where there is a discrepancy.
 
Meadmaker said:
My favorite ballot was the "Lizard People" ballot. Look it up on google news, but here's the brief synopsis. One voter wrote in "Lizard People" in several places on the ballot. i.e. for the Judge of the eleventeenth district, he filled in the "write in" oval, and wrote in "Lizard People".
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David Icke moved to Minnesota? Who knew!
 
I made my judgments before I read what others had to say. I was swayed but this is what I thought before I read other comments on the photographed ballots.

P8: Coleman, easy choice. The voter might have changed his mind and wanted to vote for Franklin by crossing out Coleman vote, but 80% chance the Coleman was the intent. He voted for Obama, but he voted for Republican in other party identified race.

P10: Franken, easy choice. better than 90% chance Franken was intent. Only issue was cross over filled in oval. But voter did that in more than one place.

P11: Indeterminate, voter filled area above oval, Maybe slight edge to Coleman because there was some kind of line thru the Coleman oval. So if this is purely preponderance of evidence Coleman by only 60% confidence. Voter voted for McCain but he voted for independent in other party identified race..

P17: Coleman 100%, I couldn't see what the issue was.

P19: Coleman 90%, Voter crossed out Franklin oval after filling it in and wrote in Coleman. Intent looks very clear.

The only change for me was the indeterminate for P11. GodMark2 convinced me that P11 was a likely Coleman.

So, after taking into account GodMark2's brilliant analysis:

Coleman 4, Franken 1.
 
I've looked at a bunch of these ballots, and most of the contested ones are no brainers. There are many where 95+ percent call it one way or another. I did not judge the ballots based on their other votes, however, just on how the ballot was marked. I recall one race where I voted straight democratic but republican for the senate.

I might count a small mark if all the other votes had similar small marks, but if all other votes had large marks and Coleman had a large mark and Franken a small mark I would count it as Coleman. If only one circle was marked I counted it for the candidate regardless of whether it was an x, a check, or a filled circle with an x through it. If two circles were filled and one had an x, however, I counted for the one without an X
 
The prediction market at intrade.com is giving 5-1 odds that Franken will win, but if I were betting, I would take Coleman at those odds. (I'm not, because I'm not certain it's strictly legal to make those bets from the US.)

Current status: Franken is ahead by a couple of hundred votes. However, there are about 5,000 votes that were challenged, and then the challenges were dropped. I think we can say that almost all of those challenged by Franken will be Coleman votes, and vice versa. There are about 400 more Franken-challenged ballots, which should mean Norm goes back in the lead when you throw them in.

Then, there are votes which were counted twice. No one will let those stay in, unless there is no way to prevent it. Colement could pick up 100 or so votes from that pile.

It seems like that means it's about +300 for Coleman.

Then, there are about 1600 absentee ballots that were not counted, but should have been. If we assume they will be counted, Franken h as to net 300 votes. That could be 950 - 650 for Franken, or nearly 60%. Franken is expected to pick up votes from the absentees, but 60%? Seems optimistic, especially when you realize there is a third party candidate. If that third party guy picks up 200 of those votes, then Franken would have to get 850-550, over 60% of the remainder, and 53% of the total. It could happen, but 5-1 odds look pretty good for Coleman.

If I had to make a straight up prediction, I would say Coleman by a hair.
 
Slowest_recount_ever! And hardly controversy-free.

Good example to bring up next time some yahoo advocates ending machine counting of votes.
 
davefoc said:
I made my judgments before I read what others had to say. I was swayed but this is what I thought before I read other comments on the photographed ballots.

P8: Coleman, easy choice. The voter might have changed his mind and wanted to vote for Franklin by crossing out Coleman vote, but 80% chance the Coleman was the intent. He voted for Obama, but he voted for Republican in other party identified race.

P10: Franken, easy choice. better than 90% chance Franken was intent. Only issue was cross over filled in oval. But voter did that in more than one place.

P11: Indeterminate, voter filled area above oval, Maybe slight edge to Coleman because there was some kind of line thru the Coleman oval. So if this is purely preponderance of evidence Coleman by only 60% confidence. Voter voted for McCain but he voted for independent in other party identified race..

P17: Coleman 100%, I couldn't see what the issue was.

P19: Coleman 90%, Voter crossed out Franklin oval after filling it in and wrote in Coleman. Intent looks very clear.

The only change for me was the indeterminate for P11. GodMark2 convinced me that P11 was a likely Coleman.

So, after taking into account GodMark2's brilliant analysis:

Coleman 4, Franken 1.
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Any ballot not filled out correctly should be thrown out and not counted. But hey, I don't live in Minnesota.

Trying to determine "voter intent" is an excuse to try to overturn election results from what I've seen in the past.
 
corplinx said:
Any ballot not filled out correctly should be thrown out and not counted. But hey, I don't live in Minnesota.

Trying to determine "voter intent" is an excuse to try to overturn election results from what I've seen in the past.
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However, there were those ballots filled out correctly that for one reason or the other the machine could not read. So, we DO have to inspect those and there have to be safeguards in doing so.

And there are always provisional and absentee ballots.

So, we have to have some kind of recount process no matter what.
 
BenBurch said:
However, there were those ballots filled out correctly that for one reason or the other the machine could not read. So, we DO have to inspect those and there have to be safeguards in doing so.

And there are always provisional and absentee ballots.

So, we have to have some kind of recount process no matter what.
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If we are counting ballots by machine, we also need an audit process to determine the error rate for the automatic counting system. For example a mandatory hand count of a small percentage of precincts picked at random after each election.
 
BenBurch said:
However, there were those ballots filled out correctly that for one reason or the other the machine could not read. So, we DO have to inspect those and there have to be safeguards in doing so.

And there are always provisional and absentee ballots.

So, we have to have some kind of recount process no matter what.
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I agree with that. I would hope everyone does. However, ballots incorrectly marked or filled out I would argue should not count. If someone makes a mistake on a ballot, they can get a new one. Trying to figure out what the voter meant is voodoo.
 
corplinx said:
I agree with that. I would hope everyone does. However, ballots incorrectly marked or filled out I would argue should not count. If someone makes a mistake on a ballot, they can get a new one. Trying to figure out what the voter meant is voodoo.
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I disagree. I have looked at several hundred of these challenged ballots, and I would estimate that on only a few percent is the intention of the voter unclear. The Minneapolis star tribune web site is quite useful: there are links where you can see every challenged ballot and decide for yourself.

And this just in: with most of the challenges decided, Franken leads by 48 votes.
The new unofficial numbers include most of the allocated votes, but not those from some unresolved ballot challenges. Nor do they include as many as 1,500 to 1,600 improperly rejected absentee ballots that are still to be dealt with. In addition, the Coleman campaign contends that about 130 ballots may have been double-counted and is seeking court action on those.
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Unless these can be identified and split 90-40 or better for Franken, Coleman still loses.


Now let's see who wants to count those incorrectly rejected absentee ballots.
 
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Yikes, what a nail-biter! Who would have though it would be so hard for Minnesotans to pick which New Yorker to be their next Senator?
 
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corplinx said:
Any ballot not filled out correctly should be thrown out and not counted. But hey, I don't live in Minnesota.

Trying to determine "voter intent" is an excuse to try to overturn election results from what I've seen in the past.
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When I made judgments about the challenged ballots that were linked to I wasn't arguing that voter intent was a better standard than some other standard, I was just trying to follow the Minnesota rules as I understood them and see what it was like to apply them.

I suppose if I was in charge I might pick a standard similar to what you suggest: follow the rules or your vote doesn't count. But even then there would be disputes and judgments required. That will be true of any paper ballot system I suspect.

As an aside, I thought the ruling against counting the guy's vote who wrote in lizard people was wrong based on a voter intent standard. The chances that the guy wanted to vote for the people he had marked seemed very strong, well beyond a preponderance of evidence standard. So maybe I don't understand the Minnesota standard or maybe an excessively prissy voter board rejected the guy's vote just because they didn't like his humor.

As another aside the California district that I vote in has replaced what I thought was a pretty good system with a system that I think is even better.

We used to vote with punch cards, but these weren't the Florida style IBM punch cards. These were cards designed specifically for voting purposes and they used a special punch device to make rectangular hole next to the selected candidate. The system seemed to be reliable and I doubt it resulted in many ambiguous votes.

We now use an computerized system that is backed up by a human readable printout that is on a roll so that the paper ballots can easily be reviewed. I suspect that the number of ambiguous votes has been reduced to almost zero or zero with this system.
 
corplinx said:
I agree with that. I would hope everyone does. However, ballots incorrectly marked or filled out I would argue should not count. If someone makes a mistake on a ballot, they can get a new one. Trying to figure out what the voter meant is voodoo.
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I think trying to figure out what the voter meant in most cases is common sense. Discarding every ballot that is not perfect means that people with poor eyesight, parkinson disease, etc. will be disinfranchised even when their intent is clear. There will always need to be some judging. Many of the challenges involved things like a completely filled circle for one candidate and a tiny dot or faint line in another circle. You don't need to be a witchdoctor to recognize that the filled circle was the voter's intent.

Here are 50 of the toughest ballots. The vast majority of the rest are much simpler than these.
 
I went thru about 15 of the ballots gdnp linked to.

The thing that was disappointing to me is that they didn't seem to have made an effort to establish standards. The same problems seem to be coming up quite a bit and it seemed to me on those they should have just looked up what rule they decided to go with and apply it.

For instance: two ovals filled in, but one has a cross thru it. This was common. Why wasn't there a general ruling on this rather than trying to decide the issue every time the situation came up again.
 
The only thing that's left now are the rejected absentees and those are expected to further help Franken. After the legal battle Franken should be certified as Minnesota's new senator.
 
Matthew Best said:
Does it really have to take this long?
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Unfortunately, 2004 dissatisfaction with election results has enabled a kook fringe who have fought against electronic voting machines.

I place a lot of blame on tech sites like slashdot where stories by kook organizations like Bev Harris' Black Box Voting were run every time they were submitted.
 
Peephole said:
The only thing that's left now are the rejected absentees and those are expected to further help Franken. After the legal battle Franken should be certified as Minnesota's new senator.
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He seems to have lost the battle of the potentially double counted ballots. So I agree. Unless the absentees break opposite the way everyone seems to be predicting, Franken should win.
 
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