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

[justfollowingtheelections]

What happens if we have a tie?  Anyone knows?

[Speed of Sound]

*blinks* ....woah. What? Did this whole thing actually just happen? Looking back on the last three weeks of this thing can only bring one thing to my mind and nothing more: "What the hell?"

[ilikeverin]

What happens if we have a tie?  Anyone knows?

Coin flip.  No, really.  This is established in state law.

[Hatman 🍁]

What happens if we have a tie?  Anyone knows?

Coin flip.  No, really.  This is established in state law.

Just like Canada... except that is tradition  rather than law I believe.

[MaxQue]

What happens if we have a tie?  Anyone knows?

Coin flip.  No, really.  This is established in state law.

Just like Canada... except that is tradition  rather than law I believe.

Depends of where. In Québec, we redo the election. Like in Champlain, in 2003.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm taking a look at how the board ruled on many ballots, and you can tell there's at least a slight pro-Franken bias to them. They tend to throw out any ballot that has any stray marks resembling an "X" over a filled-in Coleman oval even if any others aren't filled in. Yet they don't seem to apply the same standard to similar Franken votes.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The board ruled against counting this for Coleman and that it's an undervote:

http://senaterecount.startribune.com/media/ballotPDFs/carver_Victoria_2_challengedballot9.pdf

Not that I'm complaining.

[minionofmidas]

The board ruled against counting this for Coleman and that it's an undervote:

http://senaterecount.startribune.com/media/ballotPDFs/carver_Victoria_2_challengedballot9.pdf

Not that I'm complaining.

In all fairness, I can see where they're coming from.

But they'd better be following that strict a standard throughout.

[minionofmidas]

What happens if we have a tie?  Anyone knows?

Coin flip.  No, really.  This is established in state law.

In Nevada, they draw cards from a Poker deck.

[Brittain33]

What was Nate Silver's prediction, again?

[ChrisFromNJ]

AL FRANKEN TAKES THE LEAD, UP BY 11

[Sarnstrom]

After one hour of taking the lead, Franken is up by 89 votes according to theuptake.org. About 250 ballots still to go through today.

[Franzl]

After one hour of taking the lead, Franken is up by 89 votes according to theuptake.org. About 250 ballots still to go through today.

how many more in total?

[justfollowingtheelections]

hahaha Minnesota voters are hilarious.  Some of these challenged ballots have had me rofl.  I am considering moving and I never thought of Minnesota as a place I would like to go because of the cold, but it sure sounds like a fun place to be!

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

This is an outrage.

[Wiz in Wis]

This is an outrage.

Awww... poor Republicans...

Really, Imagine if you will a world where Obama got beat, we lost seats in the House and Senate, and the final contested election... down to the wire, was an Incumbent Democrat being beaten by 100 votes... by Bill O'Reilly

GOD BLESS AMERICA!

[justfollowingtheelections]

This is an outrage.

Awww... poor Republicans...

Really, Imagine if you will a world where Obama got beat, we lost seats in the House and Senate, and the final contested election... down to the wire, was an Incumbent Democrat being beaten by 100 votes... by Bill O'Reilly

GOD BLESS AMERICA!

hahah

[Flying Dog]

Franken up by 154 votes now.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

LOL@the whining Republicans. The board making these decisions consists of:

The Secretary of State (Democrat)
Two Supreme Court justices appointed by Pawlenty.
A long time Democratic Ramsey County justice and one appointed by Ventura.

So that's two Democrats, two Republicans and an independent. Sounds like a fair board to me, not a partisan Democratic one.

[Sam Spade]

As we get close to the end of the non-withdrawn challenges (and I presume we're very close), we can start making some inferences.  The main inference is that the withdrawn challenges will be 95%+ votes removed from the other candidate and the rest will be put into Other.  That's what my simple one hour analysis of the lists told me.

Naturally, it is impossible that one candidate's challenge will result in a vote for that candidate, absent administrative error.

So, let's start off with the base:

Base Results
SOS:  Coleman +188
Challenges:  Coleman 3377, Franken 3278

Challenges Already Reviewed (According to Strib - last time I refreshed)
Coleman: 834
Franken: 445
Result of Coleman Challenges:  32C, 677F, 125O
Result of Franken Challenges: 252C, 76F, 117O
Net Change:  Franken +469
Result:  Franken +281

Challenges Remaining (according to SOS MINUS Strib)
Coleman 2543
Franken 2833
Challenge Gap: Franken +290

What does this mean?
- If we assume that all the challenges remaining result in a ballot for the other candidate (95%+ will at this point), Coleman will win by 9.
- To the extent a candidate's challenge is counted for "other" candidates, the candidate will gain one challenge against the mean. (those will be less than 5% at this point)
- Administrative error is a variable which can't be taken into account and can change these presumptions.
- It is also possible that a candidate's challenge could result in a vote for that candidate, but concerning "withdrawn challenges", that would probably be entirely due to administrative error

I may update later today if we have more (and I have time).

[Sarnstrom]

Franken's margin over 200 votes now. Star Tribune has it at 220 votes, the uptake has it at 233 votes.

[Sarnstrom]

Nate Silver is now predicting that Franken will win by 40 votes once everything is settled.

[Verily]

Naturally, it is impossible that one candidate's challenge will result in a vote for that candidate, absent administrative error.

Not true. There are a handful of ballots which were counted for Franken on election night but which have been challenged by Coleman as possibly intended to vote for Coleman, and the same in reverse. I suspect most such ballots will be deemed overvotes, except where the challenge is particularly moronic such as partisan inconsistency (e.g. challenges to McCain/Franken ballots.), but at least one or two will switch. And there are some which were deemed on election night to be undervotes or votes for Barkley or some minor candidate which have been challenged by Franken as votes for Franken or by Coleman as votes for Coleman.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Quite a few challenges would result in a vote for that candidate, most notably those ones with two ovals filled but one crossed out. The machine would count that as an overvote, but the board has been calling them for the candidate.

[Sam Spade]

Naturally, it is impossible that one candidate's challenge will result in a vote for that candidate, absent administrative error.

Not true. There are a handful of ballots which were counted for Franken on election night but which have been challenged by Coleman as possibly intended to vote for Coleman, and the same in reverse. I suspect most such ballots will be deemed overvotes, except where the challenge is particularly moronic such as partisan inconsistency (e.g. challenges to McCain/Franken ballots.), but at least one or two will switch. And there are some which were deemed on election night to be undervotes or votes for Barkley or some minor candidate which have been challenged by Franken as votes for Franken or by Coleman as votes for Coleman.

I agree with you as concerning the "presented challenges", but I am only referring to "withdrawn" challenges, which means that the result will revert to the original decision at the recount made by the County Board of Elections.  In other words, if the original decision was the same as election night, it will be that.  If it's different, it will stay different.

95+% of the time the original decision was the same as election night and 95%+ of those "withdrawn" challenges were votes for the other candidate who didn't challenge the ballot.  It will be a higher percentage, naturally, than those challenged.

The trick is figuring out the content of those "withdrawn" challenges that were not the same result as election night.  Were they "other" votes or were they votes for the other candidate.

And of course, administrative error plays a part.  If a challenge the SOS labeled as a Coleman challenge is really a Franken challenge, or vice versa, that alters the assumptions.