Coleman Has Good Day In Minnesota Recount
GOP Sen. Norm Coleman had a good day in today's round of the Minnesota recount, wiping out about two thirds of the gains that Al Franken had made so far in this never-ending roller-coaster of an election.
According to the latest numbers collected by the Star Tribune, Coleman is ahead by 180 votes with 68% of ballots recounted. Last night, Franken had closed the gap to 120 votes with 64% counted, so the recounting of just four percent of the ballots today was very good for Coleman.
There is of course a major caveat here, the same one we noted when Franken made big gains on the first day of this process: Don't put too much stock in a single day or a particular batch of ballots, as the swings that happen here are likely to be random and unpredictable. That said, today obviously wasn't good for Franken, and he better hope the remaining ballots have some good news for him.
Another big unknown here is what the outcome will be of the many challenged ballots, which are not included in the current totals pending review by the state canvass board. There are now almost 2,000 of them, compared to less than 900 just yesterday afternoon. Depending on the nature of those challenges, there could be anything from a huge swing to Franken to a total wash or even a swing to Coleman. And we simply don't know.
The only thing that's clear about today's shift is that Coleman has stepped up his frivolous challenges. In fact, both sides have, but Coleman's have increased at a faster rate. Coleman wants to make dead sure that, when this thing heads to the canvassing board and the courts, he's got the lead.
November 22, 2008 11:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even if Franken's vote total were being suppressed artificially, that still means his campaign will have to work at the canvassing board to get the votes put back in. So today still wasn't good for him, regardless of whether (correctable) shenanigans are going on.
In some cases the work will be very easy. Other times it won't.
November 23, 2008 2:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
That may be what the Coleman people are hoping, I don't believe it will happen that way.
If the canvass board has been saddled with thousands of incontestably obvious ballots, I don't think it will require much "working of the board" to get those ballots decided correctly.
In fact, the entirely obvious and spurious challenged may be resolved all the faster simply because of the massive workload facing the board.
We have to remember that there is absolutely no penalty for making spurious challenges. These reports of spurious challenges achieve only the most modest of goals. They make the reported numbers almost entirely meaningless and perhaps delay an eventual decision. While such challenges may certainly delay the day of reckoning, I don't think they'll change that reckoning one bit. If anything, the canvass board will do an even more thorough job of vetting and achieve an even more accurate accounting.
If Coleman is playing these games on a large scale, he'll only manage to put off his date of execution, he won't be able to change the verdict.
November 23, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The purpose of spurious challenges is to cloud the issue and cause doubt. It doesn't take multiple paragraphs to state that obvious fact.
November 23, 2008 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Check out 538.com today. Basically, these daily updates are meaningless at this point. It's just political gamesmanship. The state canvassing board will have to examine probably several thousand ballots that were challenged for bogus reasons.
Link
November 22, 2008 11:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eric, Your suggestion that Franken had a "bad day" is a totally unsupported claim. The numbers you're quoting don't mean a damn thing.
The reason is because the rules allow the candidates to challenge any ballot for ANY REASON.
A number of analysts (including Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com) believe the Coleman crew may have started drastically over culling Franken votes in order to keep the numbers looking good for the Coleman side.
The Franken campaign is now saying that Coleman's people have even started challenging split tickets. That's right, Coleman is challenging ballots for no other reason that the voter voted for both McCain and Franken.
Is the Coleman crew actually culling votes just to keep themselves in a temporary lead? There's simply no way to know. Because there is no way to know and because there are already over 2,000 challenged ballots with the rate of challenges growing daily, we've absolutely no idea where things truly stand.
Bottom line:
Today may have been a bad day for Franken, it may also have been a great day, or a middling day. Because the number of challenged ballots is so huge, because the candidates can challenge for any reason without penalty, we have absolutely no idea what the real count is.
Those numbers above mean just about nothing.
November 23, 2008 12:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Megadittoes!
November 23, 2008 2:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, but Kleefeld has got to post something to feel relevant, even if there is nothing of substance to post.
November 23, 2008 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hello Kettle, this is the Pot...you been tanning again?
November 24, 2008 8:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, that was an uninformed description of what's going on.
Challenged votes are taken out of the vote total.
If Coleman challenges a Franken-vote, then Franken loses a vote in his total.
We have seen Coleman's people challenge ballots where the voters clearly marked McCain & Franken. Coleman's camp may engage in wishful thinking, but when this comes to the commission, it will be added to Franken's total.
Coleman's camp is engaging in optics, and trying to create the illusion that Coleman is ahead, before the challenged ballots are reviewed.
And idiotic "analysis" such as this one will help his camp.
November 23, 2008 4:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Eric could have written:
Coleman camp challenges rise to create illusion they are ahead.
November 23, 2008 4:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Or he could have posted nothing and saved bandwidth.
November 23, 2008 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, of course. The frightful bandwidth shortage. I hope all TPM writers, and commenters, respect the need for absolute minimal bandwidth usage. We are incredibly short, and there are poor people going without bandwidth. It is time for all of us to step up to the plate, and start hoarding bandwidth, and I challenge JNagarya to show us his mettle and be the first to foreswear further usage!
November 24, 2008 9:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
From 538:
It is unclear, however, whether the running counts provided by the Star Tribune and Secretary of State are any longer providing useful information. This is because the percentage of challenged ballots has now reached epidemic levels. Among the relatively small number of ballots added today to the Secretary of State's nightly estimate, the Coleman campaign challenged 14.2 ballots for every 10,000 cast, and the Franken campaign 12.2 for every 10,000 cast. This rate of challenges was almost twice that observed in Friday's counting, and 4-5 times as much as in the first two days of ballot counting on Wednesday and Thursday.
===
Coleman could be pulling ahead, but nobody knows now.
November 23, 2008 4:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
A final indication of where this could go for Coleman:
http://images2.dailykos.com/images/user/191280/dot.jpg
This ballot is clearly marked for Franken, but Coleman's camp is stating that the small mark inside Barkley's oval means the voter meant to vote for Barkley.
The issue here is:
1. Did someone add the mark for Barkley, to create a machine overvote? And thereby getting the ballot rejected?
2. Or was the voter careless?
Voter intent is what matters, and Franken will get the vote.
A bad day for Coleman.
November 23, 2008 4:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Any day you wake up and look in the mirror and see that yes, once again, you actually are Norm Coleman, is a very bad day.
Though I recently lost my job I still have many things to be thankful for. At the top of my list is the fact that I am not and will never be Norm Coleman. How'd you like to live with that on your resume?
November 23, 2008 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, Eric as usual playing the poll analyst (which he ain't) and getting roasted for it (rightfully).
Somethings never change at Election Central.
November 23, 2008 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
He actually got one of his irrelevancies quoted over at Salon by another "analyst" with nothing relevant to contribute.
November 23, 2008 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Better Headline: MN:Franken and Coleman Gains Obscured by Ballot Challenges
Now, would people be dogpiling on Eric if it had read "Another Bad Day for Coleman in Minnesota Recount"? Would they be going to 538 and reporting that Franken had to step up his frivolous ballot challenges to counterbalance Coleman's efforts to game the numbers and (falsely) assert victory after the recount process?
Eric is right and Nate Silver concurs. Coleman gained despite Franken challenging more ballots than him. That does indicate an actual gain for Coleman at least as much as previous days indicated the opposite. Of course, no one can know the TRUE nature of the challenged ballots, at this point. We are basically putting our faith in Franken having more integrity than Coleman, which he does, but he is clearly playing Coleman's game and, thus, making it hard for us to tell anything.
If I had to bet, it would be on Franken winning, but, Coleman's goal is crystal clear: he's going to win the recount, claim the "will of the people", victory and depend on the noise machine and the media to ramp up pressure on election judges into "doing the right thing".
They will and Coleman will lose the election.
November 23, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Coleman's goal is crystal clear: he's going to win the recount, claim the "will of the people", victory and depend on the noise machine and the media to ramp up pressure on election judges into "doing the right thing".
_____
False: the recount INCLUDES the work of the canvassing board that evaluates and winnows and counts the rejected ballots.
It ain't over until the canvassing board sings.
November 23, 2008 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
When did this turn into a headline writing contest? Go outside, the weather's beautiful!
November 23, 2008 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
What I find baffling about the recount challenges is how many are on ballots the machine previously counted for one candidate or the other. Rather than picking up votes both candidates are actually losing votes. This just doesn't smell right.
I hope the canvassing board is not made aware of who challenged the individual ballot otherwise a lot of these will be decided on a 3-2 party line vote. That we don't want. But the stakes are high and with this kind of pressure just about anything can happen.
November 23, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Josh characterizes Nate Silver's view as "Franken's more likely to win". There are other characterizations above.
Since Nate's calculations produce a 27 vote win for Franken I think the right headline would
be SILVER SAYS IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO PREDICT MINNESOTA WINNER
November 23, 2008 9:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the canvassing board is that partisan, why do they need to know who challenged the ballot? Wouldn't it be obvious who would benefit based on whether or not the challenge was upheld?
November 23, 2008 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who ever wins this contest won't be going (back) to Washington with a mandate. Why was this race so close? Did Franken not run an effective campaign? Is Coleman not so bad after all? Are the voters confused? Although the Obama margin was substantial, it still left many millions of disgruntled voters who wanted a continuation of Bush policies. Now *that's* depressing.
November 24, 2008 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink