One numbers junkie's prediction — Franken over Coleman by 27 votes

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Minnesota Recount Live, Day 7: One numbers junkie's prediction — Franken over Coleman by 27 votes

Things may not be going as well as Al Franken hoped in the recount, but don't tell that to Nate Silver. The numbers junkie behind FiveThirtyEight.com predicts that Franken will win the recount — once all challenges are resolved — by 27 votes. (Related: Franken losing ground to Coleman on DFL turf
How'd he come up with that number?

It's little complex — OK, that's an understatement — but Silver basically did a regression analysis using recounted precincts where there were few or no challenged ballots (Franken has done well there) and projected it across the rest of the state.

The analysis has caught national attention. Here's MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, speaking Monday night on her show:

"In the Minnesota Senate race — over the weekend, FiveThirtyEight.com`s Nate Silver, America`s most widely-loved electoral projector, analyzed precinct-by-precinct returns and predicted that Al Franken will win the recount by a grand total of 27 votes. If Nate Silver turns out to be exactly right in this race, like he was in the presidential race, with this 27-vote margin prediction — if he`s right again, the whole country has to buy him a beer — 300 million beers for Nate Silver."

HOW CRUCIAL ARE REJECTED ABSENTEE BALLOTS?

The State Canvassing Board on Wednesday is scheduled to consider the Franken campaign's argument that all rejected

absentee ballots should be reviewed and that improperly rejected absentees should then be counted.
How big a deal will that be?

Larry Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance told the Pioneer Press this: "The Franken campaign is going to win or lose based on what happens with the absentees."

And how many rejected absentee ballots would have to be reviewed?

Well, there were 425 rejected absentees in Scott County alone. And more than 1,000 in Ramsey County. In short, a lot.

PAWLENTY DOESN'T THINK HE'LL GET TO PLAY PICK THE SENATOR

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty doesn't think the Senate recount will mean he'll get to appoint the next Senator.

"That seems highly unlikely," the governor said Monday.

Highly unlikely doesn't mean impossible and that leaves enough of a possibility that Minnesota political geeks can play the parlor game: Who would Pawlenty pick?

EMPTY SENATE SEAT EQUALS MORE INAUGURATION TICKETS FOR KLOBUCHAR

The possible upside of the U.S. Senate recount leaving the next senator unclear when Congress reconvenes on Jan. 6?

"Then I can get all the inauguration tickets," Sen. Amy Klobuchar said with a smile, during a Monday meeting with the Pioneer Press editorial board. (For the board's Q&A with Klobuchar, check out: www.twincities.com/opinion/ci_11064482.)




http://www.twincities.com/ci_11071552?nclick_check=1

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Recount wrinkle surfaces in Minnesota: missing ballots. It's important .


The absentee ballots in Crystal County should have been counted. They have the identification of the voters, so this seems like a … read more no-brainer. It's too bad they were found so late, but how can you NOT count them?

As far as inferring missing ballots based on differences between paper ballots and machine counts, it is disturbing, but hard to know what to do with the information. Are the machines wrong? I guess the counties should look, but it is not a clearcut situation-- How do you prove the existence of something you don't have in your hands?

IF there are no missing ballots, then what it does PROVE though is that the machine count was wrong, and so again, how important the recount was!


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.


http://www.startribune.com/politics/...7PQLanchO7DiUs

[Bubba Dawg]

Dang that close.

Even so, I think we've got Georgia. Chamblis looks okay to take Martin. They still will have only 59 even if Franken wins out.