From the Pioneer Press:
Franken also received unexpected good news when Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann dropped a mini-bombshell, telling the board that in overwhelmingly Democratic Duluth – which has not officially tallied rejected absentees – about 40 percent of that city’s 319 rejected absentee ballots were mistakenly rejected. Gelbmann said the city rejected the votes because either the voter or the witness did not date their signatures. He said he couldn’t find any state law to support such a rejection.
(Hat-tip: Paleo)
I’m doing the math as we speak about how the city of Duluth voted. Give me 15. I’ll Nate Silvers this one.
Just when I thought we might lose here, we’re getting loads of good news today! First the ruling on the absentee ballots, and now this! Franken may end up winning by that 37 vote margin Nate Silver predicted. 😉
from those Duluth absentee ballots then. Actually, should be even a bit higher than that, but we’ll speculate on that in a minute.
If 40% of the 319 ballots are counted, that is 127.6 ballots.
The city of Duluth voted this way
Franken- 55.3%
Coleman- 31.6%
Barkley- 12.8%
Other-1%
That gives Franken an extra 71 votes and Coleman an extra 40 votes, thus giving Franken a 31 vote pick-up.
HOWEVER! Remember that the absentee ballots as a whole in the state have been going for Franken by a solid margin or whatever has been said. That means that those absentee ballots will probably lean even more for Franken. Add on maybe another 5% to his vote margin and he gets 77 votes. And then from that gain, Coleman would statistically lose 4.4% if Barkley maintains a 12ish% in the absentee ballots, giving him 35 votes, thus giving Franken an extra 42 votes! And that’s if Franken only get’s a 5% absentee vote cushion, could be higher than that even.
So today alone, Franken has gained 70-80 votes. That makes him only 100 down?
Will also be going through all the challenged ballots on Tuesday. Gear up, news is going to keep coming from Minnesota.
Not so good news per the Minneapolis Star Tribune dated 4:45 PM (5:45 PM eastern time. They claim they want to avoid a Florida type situation but that’s exactly where they want to go. Coleman wants to stop the count.
Didn’t this court alread rule once that they did NOT have jurisdiction and that the canvassing board should make the call on absentee ballots? (They also said they were NOT ruling on the merits of the case.)
Now the canvassing board, which includes two Supremes, has made the call to count the wrongly discarded absentee ballots.
So why would the Supreme Court now decide it DOES have jurisdiction and rule in Coleman’s favor?
I think Coleman loses this one – hopefully quickly. I would like to see the absentee ballot count coming in quickly and reducing Coleman’s lead significantly so the challenged ballots will just be piling on.
Fascinated Reader