Tag Archives: Al Franken

The Minnesota Recount is Over

As many of you have already heard, the recount process in Minnesota to determine the outcome of the Senatorial race is over, and Al Franken has been certified as winner.

There is now a review period of seven days during which any voter in the state of Minnesota. Including me, Al Franken, whomever, can sue for an Election Challenge. Although both Secretary of State Ritchie and I have expressed the opinion that Norm Coleman, who lost the race, is unlikely to issue such a challenge, the press and even Coleman’s lawyers have suggested that a challenge will in fact be filed by three o’clock tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.

However, you know the following is true: The best chance Coleman has to turn what he calls Franken’s “Artificial Lead” around is from a set of 650 as yet uncounted rejected absentee ballots. There are two things working against Coleman in regards to these ballots. First, the process is over and they were not counted. Asking for them to be counted is not a matter of bringing in something new. They have already been not-counted by a process determined by the same court to which Coleman would issue the challenge, and some members of that court were also on the canvassing board that certified the election this afternoon. So the chances of a challenge being accepted by this court is easily estimated at zero point zero zero zero. Or less.

Second, in order for Al Franken’s official 225 vote lead to be erased by counting these absentee ballots, there would have to be a very strong bias in these 650 ballots that Coleman wants counted. I calculate that there is about a two to three percent probability that counting these votes would change the outcome in Coleman’s favor. That may seem like a lot, but the chances of having the votes being counted to begin with is about zero.

Coleman really has two choices: Proceed with the challenge and end his political career or don’t proceed and have a chance of continuing in Minnesota politics.

Which, I would guess, would involve his run for governor in two years. As a democrat, of course.

Someone on the internet agrees with me

… regarding the likely response by Coleman following the certification of the Minnesota Senatorial Race tomorrow (Monday) by the Canvassing Board.

No matter who wins, either party can lodge a legal challenge, potentially pushing the election results out quite a period of time from now. In 1969, Minnesota was unable to certify their Senator until well in to March.

But this isn’t the 1960s, and Norm Coleman surely knows that.

Just because he challenges the election, which is something he’s well poised himself to do, it doesn’t mean the outcome will change. If he fights tooth and nail to the death, and he loses, it will surely spell the end of his political career…

Read the rest by Brian White at Glossy News. Oh, google it. The site is showing signs of not being well behaved so I’m not linking to it.

Franken lead rises to over 200

And the worst case scenario is that this lead could drop by far less then necessary to turn the race around.

Everyone assumes that the loser, in this case Coleman, will file a law suit. It would fit with how the game has been played so far. But what would such a law suit do? It is not the case that there is some 300 votes laying around that Coleman could have if he won a suit. The best he could probably do, and this is very unlikely, is to get about 130 votes that may or may not have been double counted thrown out. Not enough.

The other thing Coleman could do with a law suit is to end his political career in Minnesota. It is now Obvious that Franken has won this race. If Coleman files a law suit, which he would have to do within seven days of the certification of the election (expected Monday), and the suit was heard by the State Supreme court (which it may well not be), then there would be a period of several (three or four) weeks during which time Coleman would be increasingly seen as not really caring about democracy. This, of course, would be happening as the other shoe drops on Coleman’s political career.
Continue reading Franken lead rises to over 200

New Analysis of the Franken-Coleman Senate Recount

The current situation is this: We are waiting for a final decision next week on the outcome of the race, and most likely this outcome will start numerically with Franken’s current 49 vote lead and be adjusted by the addition of several hundred absentee ballots. The exact number of these ballots to consider is still being fought out.

Following the board’s decision next week, probably Wednesday, one of the candidates will be declared the winner (this is the job of the canvassing board …. to declare the winner) and sent to Washington. There may well be further court fights over this, but at some point the Senate seats its Senators and it is difficult to imagine how a court can overrule the Senate in this matter, as long as it has acted Constitutionally.

At some point, the candidate who loses will have to realize that there is not a legal “recourse” for losing an election.

Given that the absentee ballots are up for grabs and constitute the most important thing happening right now in the recount, I thought you might enjoy a brief analysis of what the possible outcomes might be. First, have a look at this graph:

i-e48aba467f0ab6049f7277ece60f938e-wcs_recount_500.jpg

Continue reading New Analysis of the Franken-Coleman Senate Recount

Minnesotans: Would You Like to Caucus for Al?

Minnesota is, as my cousin from Colorado was telling me the other day, one of the irrelevant states in the current presidential primary process. Maybe so. But the process is not irrelevant with respect to other issues at hand. Everybody I know is tired of our senior Senator, Norm Coleman, but we also like the guy. We like the guy so much we want to send him into retirement.And replace him with Al Franken. Continue reading Minnesotans: Would You Like to Caucus for Al?