I hope Franken gets elected so he can make an ass out of himself in one of the highest elected offices of the land and then write a snarky little book about it that will make NYT bestseller. Then again, the public will probably take it the wrong way and assume that we ridicule politicians to feel better about ourselves rather than holding them to a status higher than an ongoing joke.
If I'm a citizen of Alaska, and I've been missing a governor for the last quarter, I'd be ticked off if she went to start playing Georgia politics. Does she really not have anything to do up there? Just go away already.
There's a big poultry industry in Georgia so maybe she's heading down to lend some of her expertise in turkey killing.
i'm sure anyone would get tired of watching putin rear his head from their front porch in their air space. seriously, isn't it about the time its always dark, who wants to be in alaska in the winter. probably 3/4 of the state is actually uninhabitable this time of year.
The latest margin is back 213. It's looking more likely that Coleman may hang on with around a 200 vote margin. This whole thing though will very likely end up court.
The Franken campaign is now claiming that there are many missing ballots out there which aren't be countered. There is some evidence to this as a few ballots have been found. http://www.startribune.com/politics...yqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUs Recount wrinkle surfaces in Minnesota: missing ballots By KEVIN DUCHSCHERE, Star Tribune Last update: November 25, 2008 - 5:28 PM A new wrinkle is surfacing today in the recount battle in Minnesota between incumbent U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman and challenger Al Franken -- missing ballots. The Franken campaign today said that it has learned of missing ballots totaling several hundred in various counties. Franken recount attorney Marc Elias said he's also bothered that counties that know they have missing ballots aren't bothering to look for them. Elias declined to identify those counties but acknowledged that the Franken campaign is monitoring reports of several dozen missing ballots in Becker County. Officials can determine they have missing ballots whenever they come up with fewer paper ballots than what the electronic Election Night vote total was for the U.S. Senate race. In Crystal, officials there say they have found eight absentee ballots, still sealed in their security envelopes, that had not been counted on Nov. 4. The ballots, which were subsequently included in the city's recount, increased Democrat Franken's total by seven votes and Republican Coleman's by one. The envelopes were discovered Friday night among opened envelopes, a city spokeswoman said. Also today, Elias says the Franken campaign believes its deficit in the recount has shrunk to 84 votes. Before the recount, Coleman led Franken by 215 votes out of about 2.9 million cast, a margin that has fluctuated over the past week. Elias says that the smaller number is based on how election judges in the counties have ruled so far on challenged ballots. Those several thousand challenged ballots are awaiting final scrutiny by the State Canvassing Board next month. As for rejected absentee ballots, Elias said the Franken campaign has received lists of those voters from all or part of 66 counties. That accounts for about 6,400 ballots, he said. On Wednesday, the Canvassing Board will meet to consider whether to allow any of those ballots to be counted. While Elias said he expects most of the absentee ballots to be upheld as invalid, he thinks some will be allowed. He declined to estimate how many that might be. Elias also expressed confidence in Franken ultimately defeating Coleman because two southern Minnesota counties with large student populations -- Blue Earth and Winona -- either have most or all of the recount to go yet. Franken won both of those counties on Election Night. While Elias said he expects most of the absentee ballots to be upheld as invalid, he thinks some will be allowed. He declined to estimate how many that might be. Elias also expressed confidence in Franken ultimately defeating Coleman because two southern Minnesota counties with large student populations -- Blue Earth and Winona -- either have most or all of the recount to go yet. Franken won both of those counties on Election Night. Star Tribune staff writer Bob von Sternberg contributed to this report. Kevin Duchschere • 612-673-4455
The ridiculous number of challenged ballots and the "missing" ballot issue have taken this recount into the ditch. I've lost interest in following it day-to-day. Coleman is looking strong but until the very large number of challenged ballots are recounted in mid-December, it's hard to gauge where this likely end up.
You can't really pay too much attention to the margin because of all the challenged ballots. For example, it's possible that Franken has challenged a lot of obvious votes for Coleman which would cut into Coleman's total since each vote originally counted for a candidate that is challenged is removed from the total. After statistical analysis fivethirtyeight thinks Franken is a very slight favorite: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/state-pegs-coleman-lead-at-172-votes.html
In the latest news the canvassing board has rejected the Franken campaign's argument to accept rejected absentee ballots. They've said that is a matter for the courts to decide. Also the Coleman campaign has put forward an offer for a challenge moratorium for both campaigns.
The Canvass Board is counting the absentee ballots today and reviewing the disputed ballots, and so far (as of 10am CST) Franken has pulled ahead by 81 votes . http://senaterecount.startribune.com/ballots/
Man, I've said before that I don't like Franken (I don't), but this rocks, if it sticks. One less vote needed to overcome a filibuster and one more Senate vote for approving the Democratic agenda. edit: Franken lead now 115! edit: now it's 120! (this is crazy... every few seconds, Franken goes up a couple of votes! ) http://www.startribune.com/
It became obvious last weekt that Coleman was going to lose becuase his tactics smacked of desperation. I wanted him to beat Franken but his campaign's behavior since the election has been so despicable (while Franken has been more measured and steady) that I'm neutral. I just can't make myself say "Sen. Al Franken". What is this country coming to?
As of the end of the day Franken now leads by 251 votes. http://www.startribune.com/politics...kD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUycaEacyU This thing is far from over though as the withdrawn challenge ballots, about 5,000, have to be counted and there are about 150 duplicate ballots that the Coleman campaign is trying to prevent from being counted on the basis that they may have been counted twice. Still looming is a few thousand absentee ballots that were improperly rejected that the courts have ruled should be counted. These are supposed to be counted on New Year's Eve but first the two campaigns have to agree on rules for how they should be tallied. Its looking almost inevitable that when the next Congress convenes on Jan. 6th we still won't know who is the other senator from Minnesota.
The US needs a more scientific voting system. ANY system will have errors, so if an election is decided by less than, say, 0.2% (I don't know what the perfect # would be), you automatically have a special run-off or some other way of deciding the winner (governor or some such). There's just no reliable way to determine the "real" winner when there is a statistical tie, well within the natural error bars of the election measurement.
