Franken Camp: Margin Now 84 Votes, Ballots Still Missing

The Franken campaign, citing internal numbers, say the recount election deficit that they face against Sen. Norm Coleman is now down to a mere 84 votes.

The results, announced by Franken's chief counsel, Marc Elias, present a mixed bag of sorts for the Democratic challenger. While Franken has narrowed the post election gap by some 61 percent (he started roughly 215 votes behind Coleman), the numbers were taken after a survey of 78.9 percent of the November 4 vote.

Elias, sounding a somewhat optimistic tone, said that the remaining recount will come from areas that lean (51 percent) Democratic.

"We believe that an overall subset of the vote yet to be included in the recount is overall bluer," he said.

In addition to updating reporters on the new margin -- which differs from the count of Minnesota's Secretary of State -- Elias rang the alarm, once more, over rejected absentee ballots and ballots that have gone missing from the recount process.

Noting that some of the 6,400 absentee ballots were rightfully rejected because they did not meet election compliance laws, he added that the campaign had taken legal action to ensure that the process was transparent.

"We made clear that our lawsuit for the data was to understand what the scope of the rejected absentees were," he said of the suit the campaign had previously filed. The state canvassing board will take up the question of rejected absentee ballots at a meeting on Wednesday.

Elias estimated that there were somewhere in the range of 150 missing ballots -- a margin that could favor Coleman or Franken or, in the historically close race, could affect the outcome of the election.

Comments

[EosBlue]

Don't know if this is the most accurate site for MN info. A few minutes ago they had Coleman up by 235 votes.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/?elr=KArks8c7PaP3E77K_3c%3A%3AD3aDhUxWoW_vcOiDUiD3aPc%3A_Yyc%3AaUoD%3AEaD_eyckcU

[cheferic]

I'm looking forward to hearing him say "Mr.President it's me Al Franken"

[SqueezeMcGee]

I am stoked that Franken will most likely win this election. He would be a great voice in the Senate for my views and beliefs. And it excites me that the Democrats can now challenge elections and win. But it is very close to the Republicans of past who have stolen elections. Isn't it a little unnerving that the Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie, who is a Democrat, is the chief official of elections? With all these "lost" or "stolen" ballots, I almost feel dirty knowing he will win this way. I love that we are now doing it ourselves, but I'm nervous it makes us hypocrites.

[Leslib]

O.K. so after the recount it's whoever is ahead even if they win by one vote? What if it ends up a tie at the end of the recount? Is there any scenario under which they will do a run off election?

[realitychecks]

I'm rooting for Al.

[vdub4]

amen...again.

[CTtransplant]

What people may not realize is this:

Coleman keeps disputing votes to keep his margin up - when it may not be at all. Example: Coleman challenged a ballot where the voter filled in the bubble for McCain/Palin and filled in the bubble for Franken. He (Coleman) says its inconceivable that the voter would vote for McCain and Franken - Coleman believes *(even though there are only those two marks to go from) that the voter's intent was to vote for Coleman. There are lots of these type of challenges by Coleman. So Franken's figures may very well be much more accurate at this point.

[stepper]

Here's more: The Franken camp is concentrating on undervotes while Coleman is going after Franken votes. This means when the challenged votes are reviewed, one of four things will happen: 1) Coleman's challenge is upheld - neither candidate gets a vote; 2) Coleman's challenge is rejected - Franken gets a vote; 3) Franken's challenge is rejected - neither candidate gets a vote; 4) Franken's challenge is upheld, Franken gets a vote. With almost 4,000 challenges so far, Coleman's small lead will disappear fast when the challenged ballots are reviewed. Therefore, as soon as the recount is complete, look for Coleman's camp to declare victory, call on Franken to concede, and file court motions to stop the challenged ballots from being counted. You can bet on it.

[KarateKid]

What a joke. You'd think the greatest nation on earth could do better with these ballots, to make it easier to tally and accommodate the unintelligent people filling them out.

[the-lexicon]

What does that mean...."what a joke."?

Do you really mean to use the word "joke"? do you know what that word means?

Why do people use this word?

oh....I know what it means....it means: "hi, I'm 16 years old, so you can safely skip to the next comment without missing anything important"

got it now...I'm good.

lexicon

[Ranta]

No joke. Minnesota uses optical scanners. Most other states would be a joke. This election is really close. What do you expect, perfection?

[iBlog4Food]

The problem with ballot design starts with the fact that they aren't designed by a designer. Instead, county officials oversee their production, and the ballots are put together according to each state's election code. Unfortunately, these state election codes generally were drawn up by people who had no idea how to use graphic design to convey information.

Of course, ballot design is but one part of the voting process. There's also the human factor. Even the most simple of ballots could seem like an SAT exam to some people. Others may see that piece of paper as an opportunity to demonstrate their artistic talent, like in the MN case. The most scary part of the voting process is 'emotion' in the voting booth: Towards the beginning of this post, a lady commented that as a 54 yo woman, she had always voted for DEM but this time decided to vote IND because, according to her, she was disrespected by Franken during one of his walk-abouts.

That's fine. She is entitled to vote whoever she wants. The disturbing part of this is, as she continued to tell us, that she got 5 other members of her family to vote the same way! The irony of their so-called "independent" votes.

This recount is so close that these otherwise 6 Franken's votes might play a significant role in who comes out victorious. She doesn't seem to be losing much sleep over it.

[adsandiego]

Yeah, I saw that. "luvapetadopt" poster ...

Lots of responses from people. It looks like she's exposed though. Her comments are pretty inconsistent, one day she's dissing Biden, another day she's for him, using all kinds petty and vindictive language. Your point about the rest of the family voting like sheep and wasting their votes is spot on!

[larmarch5]

People get to vote however they want for whatever reason. Note they don't have these "voter confusion" problems in totalitarian nations. I'll take a little chaos, thank you. As for ballot design: A camel is a horse designed by a committee.

[Bluedog12]

Good luck.

[NationalTreasure]

the republicans will still find a way to steal this election

[northstar11]

the clock is running down - pretty soon he'll have to pull the goalie.

[Sarita]

I am so proud to be a native Minnesotan, even if I don't live there right now - your politics are exceptionally clean!

[Carolab]

No, we just elected a good Secretary of State in 2006 and went to work on him.

[Bariis]

This just seems all Déjà-vu to me.

[Indie2008]

It doesn't have to be pretty, Al, as long as you get there. Just ask Bush!

[hortonhearsawho]

Get a web cam in there...

[johnnyjust]

If he gets to the Senate, Franken will be the first hamster elected.

[TKDuff]

At least a hamster is smarter than W and all the guys at Faux news.

[vdub4]

amen.