Al Franken Election: Coleman's Lead Shrinks To 174 Votes

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports:

The Great Minnesota Recount kicked off Wednesday with masses of volunteers for Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken moving into a fresh phase of the struggle: eyeballing the first of 2.9 million ballots, ready to pounce on anything that looked questionable.

By day's end, with about 18 percent of the vote recounted, Coleman continued to lead Franken -- but by only 174 votes, notably narrower than the unofficial gap of 215 votes at which the recount had begun. Franken's gain owed much to a swing of 23 votes in the Democratic stronghold of St. Louis County -- the result of faintly marked ballots and older optical scanners that failed to read the marks.

The figures represent a Star Tribune compilation of recount data reported to the secretary of state and gathered by the Star Tribune.

Read the whole story.

Read more about Al Franken here and more about the recount here.

Comments

[politis]

Al's an awful candidate. Sorry folks. Good comedian, nice guy, awful candidate.

[Curlew]

And what does that have to do with the recount?

[drkazmd65]

He may not be the hottest candidate (I would respectfully disagree,... but that is just my opinon),... but compared to Coleman he is friggin' amazing.

[trollsbwild]

Coleman is facing indictment. Is he the better candidate? LOL!

[CostaMesaJoe]

Meh. He won't be representing California.
I do hope for some good an ti-Repuiblican/Bill O'Reilly lines.
Bill O ha tes this dude with a passion....

[greejambri]

YOUR opinion!

[j0n0]

Looks like Al does not want all votes to count now....another case of the rules not applying to the left...

http://blogs2.startribune.com/blogs/whistleblower/2008/11/19/one-challenge-headed-to-the-state-so-far-in-plymouth/

[Crozier]

SPIN COURTESY OF THE RUSH, SEAN AND BILLO SHOWS. TRUTH IS OPTIONAL.

[AlwaysRepublican]

SPIN????

The left invented it. That is all they do.................Al Franken would not know the truth if it hit him in the mouth.

[alteregoess]

Now that's a weird comment. When has this "rule" EVER applied to the Republicans??? Certainly not in Florida 2000 or Ohio 2004, which brought us the last 8 years of misery.

[XavierCugat]

Senator Al Franken. Hmmm...sorta has the same ring as Senator John Blutarsky.

[hortonhearsawho]

Senator and Mrs. John Blutarsky.

[Badbone]

If at first you don't succeed, recount. We hated it when Bush did it. We love it when our guy does.

[GQB]

Gore never got a recount... it was stopped by the Supreme Court.
That aside...
WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! Don't cry, little baby.

[MalloMel]

You guys are cruel :)

[Crozier]

FIRST OF ALL, THE RECOUNT IS MANDATED BY MINNESOTA LAW....AS IN LAW NOT SUGGESTION.

[StillweRise]

what are you doing tring to use all those things that re SO inconvenient to right wing arguments... (oh, what's the word for those....) oh yeah.... FACTS......

[drkazmd65]

But,... Bush never wanted a recount Badbone,... he actively stopped the recounts (via the Supremes) in FL in 2000. If there had been on official recount,... at least some assessments after the fact indicate that Bush would have lost in 2000.

So,... what would have been your point?

[Z2221344]

I never have had a problem with recounts. What I do hate is when the Supreme Court stops a recount and effectively declares who the next President of the US is going to be.

[SKonnery]

I'll second that.

[BillZBubb]

Wow, the trolls are out today.

"We hated it...". Who is the we? Bush and the right wing Supreme Court blocked a recount. WE hated that.

[ron071]

How can it be that the most technologically advanced country has so much trouble with the simple tabulation of votes? The answer becomes too obvious to any objective observer. The powers that be in the various voting irregularity states simply DON'T WANT ACCURACY but want the opportunity to rig the counts. The only answer is federally mandated and supervised votong procedures. This repeated tabulation failure is simply unacceptable in a democracy. Yet, we have the audacity to monitor voting in third world countries. This does not compute and is sheer hypocrisy.

[jeffrey678]

Conservatives want us to be a third world country!

[MalloMel]

I think that they want to steal all our money, and that is making us a third world country. I know that capitalism is supposed to be the cat's meow, but there has to be a better way. I just don't know what that is. God help us.

[vippy]

I bet there was some finagling going on. Same with the Alaskan votes. They simply withheld
the ballots to suit them. That should be punished. Also the typo they admitted to, it is idiotic
to have that.

[Crozier]

ABSOLUTELY RIGHT....CORPORATIONS WANT PREDICTABLE OUTCOMES - IF NOT, THEN THEY MAKE IT HAPPEN.

[ethearch]

.....all except this one because the vote vote was too overwhelming for the BIG O.

[TrooAmerican]

I am all for taking federal elections out of the hands of states and private entities 100%.

Have the federal election program control the process, the equipment, the training, the rules, and the choice of process.

We have right now an AVERAGE of 4 different ballot casting processes and equipment per state scattered all over the place, with confusion reigning nationwide.
We have a private company in Diebold with 100% of its officers Registered Republicans making voting equipment that continues to appear easily susceptible to fraud, reprogramming, tampering, counting irregularities, discrepancies etc.
we have routinely every 4 yrs multiple states with voter registration fraud, voting fraud, voting intimidation, voter suppression, voter harrassment, disenfranchisement, ballots being discarded, lost, found, ignored, sequestered, falsified, incomplete, and often have confusing ballots, difficulty voting for many people, not enough ballots, too many ballots, not enough voting machines, too many voting machines, not a large enough venue, or voting place.

We have routinely arrested, sued, accused, investigated, indicted, jailed people and groups every election for all of the above.

We need a national required registration process that allows statewide voting that is completely connected via secured standalone networking, with voter receipts printed for each ballot cast, with no "challengers" no difficulties, and a much easier process for voters instead of having thousands of people standing in lines for hours that present health risks and work risks, and pain to vote.

[wizargoz]

Hmmmm...do we want the Clown or the Crook? At least the Clown will be good for a laugh...

[AlwaysRepublican]

With Franken...........you get both

[greejambri]

AlwaysAMoron

[StillweRise]

After the last 8 yars, i am AMAZED there is a single republican left on this planet.

[GQB]

Smart 'clown', or stupid crook.
easy choice.

[Okieborn]

America / Al Franken might just win !!
We Love you Al Franen !!!

[grg999]

Are you ALL totally innumerate? 174 votes at 18% projects to 900+ votes at 100%.

So Coleman is WAY AHEAD, not behind.

[Clarabell]

And so if you think you are right, they should stop counting now? Maybe they will find a box of ballots that someone "forgot" in the back seat or back room.

[Crozier]

HEY CLARABELL......BUFFALO BOB HERE....THE REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR OF MN , MR. PAWLENTY, SAID THAT WAS A LIE....AN UNTRUTH.......THE REPUBLICAN VERSION OF "TRUTH"- A LIE...AND THAT IN MN THERE WAS NO IRREGULARITY THAT COLEMAN CLAIMED.

[tomjones44]

huh? 215-174=41, so Franken has gained 41 votes through 18 percent of the count. THAT translates to about 227 votes, and 227>215 so if you want to talk projections, Franken is currently ahead by 12 votes.

[cardineau]

wrong ... 215-174=41 votes. 41 votes @ 18% projects to 227 votes for Franken.

[MadxAsxHell]

Don't you know ANYTHING about vote counting? You cannot extrapolate upwards that way with anything resembling accuracy. Each county has its trend--GOP, Dem, neutral. HOW those changing votes break in each county and with what kind of voter IS significant. A bad scanner in a heavily Democratic area will mean they'll find a LOT more votes for Franken. If it's in a GOP area, they'll find more for Coleman.

But WHERE they are finding these undervotes and challenges is far more significant than simply what percentage. Notice that on Nov 4, McCain might be LEADING in votes reported when 18% was in but the state might STILL be called for Obama...It's not magic, it's sampling science.

[GQB]

Assuming no subsequent change.
That's the most amazing example of numeric illiteracy I've ever seen, speaking of calling the kettle black.
The trend is towards Franken.

[FirstShirt]

What a picture. He looks like the Joker in Batman.

[morefromLA]

All he needs is lipstick.

[milo h minderbinder]

Whatever the result it will be very close, but I think it looks VERY good for Franken, especially since many of the districts that favored him are the ones with the oldest and least reliable voting machines.

[jeffrey678]

That is why vote by mail should standard. Dumping old inaccurate voting machines in democratic areas is voter suppression.

[violimo]

Anything that can possibly impede a vote to be recorded is undemocratic as far as I'm concerned, Why does the US insist in these unreliale methods. It would never be tolerated in other countries who have paper votes only.

[levibatgirl]

We have paper ballots in Minnesota as well.

They are placed through a scanner to record your vote.

[Doomestic]

So is there a chance that they would recount the recount or is this it?

[Kiba]

If this doesn't work out, I believe they move on to a cage match.

[gcallaghan]

my understanding is the loser can still contest the outcome but must foot the whole bill for another recount

[jtmoney]

Maybe Obama finally found a use for his unused campaign funds?

[helenwheels]

The next step is fisticuffs followed by pistols at 12 paces

[vinny]

amazing how close this election is... kudos to Minnesota for running a relatively clean recount...

[findmind]

GO BABY GO!!!!! #59 here we come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TrueBlueMajority]

Dems have a much better chance of winning in MN than GA, so I hope Franken will find the votes to take the lead in the recount.