Franken Camp's Vote-Challenge Move Kicks Off New PR War
Here's an interesting twist on that other piece of news from the Franken campaign today, the announcement that they are withdrawing over 600 of their ballot challenges. By doing this, the Franken campaign is opening up a whole new front in the PR war in this recount, which could end up having a big impact if either candidate tries to dispute the result at the Senate after this is over.
What does the Franken campaign gain from doing this? After all, this means the apparent Coleman lead in the most-cited methodologies -- which keep all challenged ballots out of the count -- will shoot up by around 600 votes when the withdrawal of those challenges get processed over the next day or two.
But here's the rub: Considering the fact that the Coleman campaign has been lodging more challenges than Franken has, this upcoming increase in the apparent Coleman lead just might be the whole point. By jettisoning some of its own challenges, the Franken team could be shrewdly moving to discredit both the Coleman challenges and those vote-counting methodologies that have had Franken way back, by calling attention to the distorting effect that challenges have had.
And suddenly, people will have to start paying more attention to the Franken camp's methodology, which attempts to track the opinions of the local election officials at the sites of the ballot challenges -- a method that now has Al ahead by 22 votes.
Psychological Strategeries.
December 3, 2008 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Breaking: Minneapolis to subtract 130+ votes from tally. This could hurt Franken badly.
December 3, 2008 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Coin toss here we come!
December 3, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
You seem knowledgeable about this. If I look at the SOS page, it shows Franken up by 2535. If I look at the Star Tribune page, it has Coleman up by 273.
?
December 3, 2008 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
That one is easy: The SOS page tracks the actual votes recounted. In other words, the SOS threw out the original numbers, and started over from scratch, with each candidate at zero votes. Thus, with 91% of the precincts having been recounted, Franken is up by 2500. However, if we were to assume that the vote totals in the remaining 9% of precincts come back with totals exactly the same as they had on election night, then you will see Coleman catch up and exceed Franken by about 270 votes. In other words, the SOS is running a gross total of the recount to date.
In contrast, the Star Tribune has been keeping running net totals, by comparing individual precincts from Nov. 4 with those precincts on recount. The paper started with the original count of Coleman up by 215. If an individual precinct reports, on the recount, an additional 2 votes for Franken, then the Star Tribune's count will go to 213.
Once the recount is finished, the SOS and the Star Tribune should be reconciled. However, neither one of them can tell you who will win this election, because neither one adequately accounts for challenged ballots. All challenged ballots are simply being kept out of the count for now.
Franken's people have been keeping track of challenges. They base their count on the assumption that, usually, the election judge's decision on a challenged ballot will be upheld. Thus, say that Coleman challenges a ballot that the judge originally counted for Franken, while Franken challenges a ballot that the judge didn't count for anyone but that Franken thinks should count for him. Usually, the judge's ruling won't be disturbed, and in the case of these two ballots, Franken would end up with one, and the other goes to no one. Well, Franken's been keeping track of the election judges' decisions, and his camp says that if all the decisions are upheld, he will end up with more votes than Coleman. Of course, there's no transparency to Franken's count.
What would be great would be to have all the challenged ballots released, so that the public can see them. The Star Tribune has about 20% of them, which is great, but they are difficult to access and I would love to just see the original pdfs.
December 3, 2008 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you. I get the differences now. As well as the reasoning used by the Franken camp.
Thanks.
December 3, 2008 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good explanation. And the Coleman camp isn't releasing a running total (other than to say that the Franken statements are wrong).
December 3, 2008 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nate Silver is the Nostradamus of elections.
December 3, 2008 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
The psychology or strategy won't matter. The way I understand it is that next week the canvassing board will consider each challenged vote and make a ruling. I don't think it will matter to them who has been more reasonable or not - they'll make a decision on each ballot based on the merits of the argument.
December 3, 2008 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
It could be that the Franken withdrawn challenges are challenges to ballots that weren't given to either Coleman or Franken, in which case it would not have any effect on the difference between the two candidates.
Since the opinions of the original judges are likely to stand anyway, the difference between going forward with the challenges or not may be very small, and it has the benefit of the appearance of not making frivolous challenges.
December 3, 2008 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink