After a week of recounting, with 88% of the votes recounted:
http://ww2.startribune.com/new…
Coleman has added to his lead, partly by challenging more ballots (2885 to 2738), but also
because there aren’t many Democratic areas to recount. St. Louis County is complete, Hennepin and Ramsey Counties are 87% and 81% complete, respectively. Of the eight counties not yet started, seven of them went to Coleman.
So is it over for Al? Without challenges, he’s only picked up 80 votes. And with the strong possibility that the missing absentee ballots might not be counted, it’s getting grimmer for Franken.
There are so many challenges that it’s next to impossible to decide who the winner will be UNTIL they are resolved. The race is still a complete toss-up (in fact, I could still make a valid case that Franken is still a slight favorite to win in the recount).
Franken down 282 votes. He needs just 52.5% of the challenges to win, but it’s a near certainty we’ll be at 6000, if not 7000 or more by the time the counting is done.
However, Coleman has challenged 147 more ballots than Franken. In that case it is a near certainty Franken will win more challenges than will Coleman. Will it be enough? That is anyone’s guess. But we’re literally talking a couple percent difference here. You can’t say it’s getting grim for anyone. You definitely can’t say it’s over for anyone.
Franken’s people have been taking down the on-site reports by election judges on the contested ballots, and they show him gaining significantly, and that Coleman’s challenges are either more frivolous than his own, or that Franken is challenging more undervotes whereas Coleman is challenging a higher percentage of Franken’s ballots. Going by the widely quoted 84 number of Monday, it’s entirely possible Franken is already ahead considering the ridiculous number of challenges Coleman’s team has made these past few days.
I have to admit I thought there would be more progress made on the recount especially with the Democratic counties providing data. I fully understand and appreciate the number of challenges out there, but at this point I have to give Coleman a better than 50/50 shot at retaining the seat. I see it as an more uphill challenge for Fraken to be able to pull this off.
I know Coleman is challenging away as he wants to be in a good lead before it goes to the 5-person Canvassing Board. Then he can simply say the will of the people was overturned by a 5-person board who determined the outcome of the election. At that point, we’ll just point him to Bush v. Gore in 2000.