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

[cinyc]

What the fuck is the logic behind this challenge?

http://senaterecount.startribune.com/media/ballotPDFs/mahnomen_LakeGrove_challengedballot1.pdf

"Inconsistency"? I'd like to give that challenger a black eye.

Well, we can't tell if they used a different color ink to fill in the Franken bubble than the rest of the ballot.  And they didn't vote for President, but voted for Senate.  Bizarre. 

It's probably a good Franken vote.

[cinyc]

As of today's update...

Counties to Be Completed
Beltrami (1 precinct) - Star Tribune has reported no change in this precinct already.
Brown (100%) - Star Tribune has already reported this.  SOS hasn't.
Dodge (40% or 6 precincts)
Hennepin (35 precincts) - Pretty much all precincts are located in urban Minneapolis.
Le Sueur (61% or 14 precincts)
Ramsey (15 precincts) - Pretty much outer ring St. Paul suburbs.  All of urban St. Paul has reported.
Rock (100%)
Scott (100%)
Winona (100%)
Wright (100%)

Of the five full counties out, in the SoS count, Scott and Wright (exurban Minneapolis) are the largest (100,000+ each).  They went to Coleman by about 20 points in the original count.   Brown (New Ulm/South Central MN, population 27,000) and Rock (SW MN, population 9,700) are the smallest.  They went to Coleman by 14 and 18 points in the original count, respectively.  Franken lead in medium-sized Winona (SE MN, population about 50,000) by about 5 points.

Le Sueur and Dodge (SE MN) are fairly small and went to Coleman by 7 and 14 points, respectively.  Beltrami (Bemidji, North Central MN), Hennepin (Minneapolis) and Ramsey (St. Paul) were Franken territory.  He won those counties by about 3, 14 and 18 points in the initial count.

Coleman should pull this out.  Any gain Franken gets from the Minneapolis votes should be offset by the two exurban MSP counties.

[cinyc]

The big news of the day is that the infamous precinct 1460 in Hennepin has been dropped from the recount results while the Franken people look for the "lost" ballots (undoubtedly in the same way OJ looked for the "real" killer).

That's pretty much all of the results change except for a ton of pointless challenges (more from Franken than from Coleman) in Wright County.  And we thought challenges without a hope were done with... 

That makes sense, given Wright County is one of the most Republican in the state.  Coleman lead Franken by 17.44 points in the initial count.   There's less for Coleman to challenge.

[cinyc]

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.

[cinyc]

Idiots who thought they could afford disgustingly big houses. Oops.

Minneapolis is now gaining population. Myself being one of the 2008 additions.

As opposed to the idiots in North Minneapolis who thought they could afford an overpriced house.  Oops!   There were idiots there too!  Probably more of them in absolute numbers than any other county in Minnesota.

People have different lifestyles and housing wants and needs.  "Liberals" are supposed to be tolerant of that.