BREAKING? Franken is leading by almost 5000 votes? as of last night's SOS numbers!

[SeeHopeWin]

91.13% of votes reporting...

http://electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/20081104/SenateRecount.asp

[Renew Deal]

1. Interesting

hmmm...

[L. Coyote]

20. Everybody GET A GRIP on reality for a moment. This is very deceiving.

What matters is how the votes have changed in the precincts recounted!!

Getting excited about this is like saying, on Nov. 5, that Ted Stevens won.

NINE PERCENT of the votes are not included in this!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Renew Deal]

22. OK, can you explain your comment?

Are you saying that the 9% not counted are the heaviest Coleman counties?

[Orsino]

27. It doesn't matter how the votes have changed, though.

It matters how many there are still to count, and from where.

[mcg]

Here is a more accurate view ...

U.S. Senate recount results by county

http://ww2.startribune.com/news/metro/elections/returns/2008/recount/msenco.html

As of right now Coleman is ahead by 340 votes, but the number of challenges right now
is far greater, 3070 votes challenged by Coleman, 2882 by Franken.

This will come down to how the challenges play out.

[hlthe2b]

2. Wake up, Nate at FiveThirty Eight!

We need you to weigh in on the discrepancies! He's still talking Georgia, for the moment...

[SeeHopeWin]

9. I know, I keep checking his site.....WTF?

We want Nate NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! lol...

[LSK]

30. seems he is busy in Georgia

[Laura PourMeADrink]

3. I just saw it too !! Wow -- this is huge news. Yikes.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

8. Something's wrong. Minneapolis Star Tribune is showing 350 plus for

Coleman. I want this to be right - but something's fishy or this would be huge
breaking news

[SeeHopeWin]

11. Who do you trust more? the paper or the SOS? There is nothing wrong, they have two different totals

[hlthe2b]

15. They are counting very differently...

That's why we need Nate to sort it out...

[Laura PourMeADrink]

25. thanks for replying nicely

[hlthe2b]

26. ....

;)

[ieoeja]

33. The Star Tribune combines recount results with un-recounted results.

While the SoS just shows the recounted ballots.

So if they toss out 100% of the un-recounted ballots, Franken wins by 5k. Of course, they are not going to do that.

If 100% of the ballots remaining to be recounted do not change after the recount, then Coleman wins by 350. The Star Tribune is reporting a number much closer to reality.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

4. Now, if only Chambliss could take a dive. Come one Georgia !!

[TexasObserver]

5. OMG! It's time for the second coming of THE AL FRANKEN DECADE!

[mindfulNJ]

7. It's actually

the Al Franken Millennium :)

[Pharaoh]

6. Now only if Kerry

had fought this hard for Ohio, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today!

[MarjorieG]

24. After Bush v Gore, the state (Ohio) had to allow the recount. Blackwell the problem, not solution.

We still can't fully investigte Ohio, but bashing Kerry misdirected, for votes that walked away and a partisan theft, a Democratic and media that wanted to shut it down, making rememdy impossible. Even now.

Not enough in power wanted to steal this, this time, although mistakes at polls did happen. We dodged the bullet, this time, but everything is in place for theft to occur. Unless we're vigilant and fix the problems.

[Botany]

32. I live in Columbus, OH

Sure I wanted Kerry to fight more but it was impossible for him.

The governor, the Sec. of State, the state leg., the Ohio Supreme Court,
most of the B.O.E.s, and the media was stacked against him. Also the
White House, the Congress, and the Dept. of Justice were against him too ....
the White House and Rove worked with the Cuyahoga county to remove
1 out of 4 voters from the voter rolls.

[formercia]

34. Congress better make some tough laws to make sure

that this never happens again. Voter suppression and election fraud needs to be a felony with serious penalties for each vote suppressed.

This game has gone on for too long.

[Unsane]

10. Probably explainable.

[SeeHopeWin]

12. ? How do you mean?

[HerbieHeadhunter]

13. Somebody get a screen capture...*

nm

[Vektor]

14. I don't understand...

I have been watching this site: which shows Coleman ahead by a few hundred votes.

http://ww2.startribune.com/news/metro/elections/returns/2008/recount/msenco.html

Why the discrepancy? I'm confused. :shrug:

[Yukari Yakumo]

21. I think here's why

The SoS site only list totals from precincts that have done their recounting.

The StarTribune uses the pre-recount results for precincts who haven't done their recounting yet. Of the four remaining counties, Coleman won three of them. Combining their tallies, they would give about 5000 more votes to Coleman than to Franken. However, Hennepin and Ramsey aren't done yet, both are large population centers and both solidly went Franken.

[lynne]

16. The vote difference is in the fine print -

The SOS site states "Statewide totals shown are for reported precincts only". SOS figures do not include precincts that haven't been recounted. Star Tribune figures include all precincts - those recounted and those that have yet to be recounted. Those precincts not yet recounted are scheduled to be done on Wednesday.

[hlthe2b]

17. Taking those things into account the Franken campaign

still thought they were trailing by about 75 votes, the last I saw from them...:shrug:

Wake up, Nate, from fivethirtyeight...! Come sort this out.

[Leo The Cleo]

18. Wow

Well, I hope the guy wins. Change is going to start with the congress. I hope things get through both houses of Congress now!

[Bleacher Creature]

19. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the SOS actually shows Franken losing ground.

You have to look at the data and compare the numbers to the original count. At this point in the original count, Coleman has 2,369 more votes. Franken had 2,498 more votes. So really, Franken has lost 128 votes during the recount.

I want Franken to win as badly as anyone, and this "loss" of votes is due to Coleman's strategy of frivolously challenging ballots, but this race is far from over.

[Thegonagle]

29. There's about 6000 challenged ballots so far.

None of those will be in any running totals for either candidate.

6000 challenges makes the running margin of a couple-few hundred votes irrelevant.

The big story is due December 16th, when the canvassing board meets to decide the challenges. That's when the real counting begins, and until they're done, we won't know who won.

[LSK]

31. you cannot use that comparison

For your comparison to be valid, that would mean they are recounting the votes in the EXACT order that they were counted on election night. Meaning that the precincts reporting the vote totals would be recounted in the EXACT SAME ORDER.

[Bleacher Creature]

35. Actually, I think that is how they are reporting.

Maybe not counting ballots or precincts in the same order, but keeping track of the original vote total using the same ballots. Nobody is going to open up a 5,000 vote lead in the straight recount. It will all come down to challenges and disregarded ballots.

[Sebass1271]

23. Is this for real?

link please!!!

[Thegonagle]

28. oops

.

[BzaDem]

36. THIS IS VERY MISLEADING

This means of the 91.13% of the vote they counted so far, Franken is leading. In other words, almost 9% of the ballots are left out of this (most of which were counted without problems on election day). That 5000 lead will get wiped out when the remaining 9% (again, most of which were already counted on election night) are included in the total

The correct way to count is to first count all ballots by machine, and then add or subtract based upon corrected information for each ballot in the recount. Under this count, Coleman is still leading by a few hundred (or so the star tribune reports).

[MichDem10]

37. Remaining counties to be counted were won by Coleman by more than 5000 votes - this will be close.