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As the manual recount in the Minnesota Senate race between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken nears its conclusion, the identity of the winner is growing increasingly unclear.
Franken's campaign proclaimed Wednesday that by their own calculation they had gone up by 22 votes.
The secretary of State and Star Tribune put Coleman up 303 votes.
The Coleman campaign said (facetiously) they are leading by 2,200 votes in a release in response to Franken yesterday.
What gives?
After several conversations with people far smarter than us on both sides of the aisle, here's our best take on where things stand, the discrepancy in counts and where we go from here.
First, the facts.
By Friday, all 2.9 million (or so) of the votes cast in the race will have been manually recounted. As of today there are roughly 138,000 votes that have yet to be recounted.
The process by which the votes have been recounted is simple: an independent arbiter looks at each ballot (on a precinct by precinct basis) and rules on whether it is a vote for Coleman or Franken. Each campaign has an observer in place at the recount and that observer can challenge the ruling of the independent judge. By and large the voter intent is obvious and the ballot is not challenged but in some cases one side or the other makes a challenge -- typically on the basis that the voter's intent is not clear.
It is these challenged ballots, which number roughly 6,000, that are responsible for the confusion.
The secretary of State's office chooses not to count any of these ballots in its overall vote count -- meaning that when the recount ends on Friday there will be 6,000 or so fewer votes than there were on election day.
The Franken campaign, on the other hand, is counting all 6,000 votes -- using as its standard the judgment of the independent observer. So, if the independent analyst ruled a ballot as a vote for Coleman -- even if Franken is challenging it -- the Franken campaign counts it as a vote for Coleman.
In short: the secretary of State is counting none of the challenged ballots and the Franken campaign is counting all of the challenged ballots. It's that simple.
The fate of the race likely rests in the hands of how these 6,000 challenged ballots shake out. Once the recount ends, a five-person canvassing board is set to meet on Dec. 16 to make final rulings on the remaining challenged ballots.
Our take: This race is about as close to a tie as you can get. But, remember that in politics perception matters and both sides are, smartly, seeking to win the PR battle.
The Coleman campaign is emphasizing that he was ahead on election night and, according to the secretary of State he is ahead in the recount.
The Franken folks stand by their +22 number and believe -- publicly and privately -- that this is a race that will be decided by a few dozen votes.
Remember that the closest Senate race in history -- the 1974 New Hampshire contest between Republican Louis Wyman and Democrat John Durkin -- wound up being litigated by the Senate itself and, eventually, concluded in a re-vote in which Durkin emerged as the winner.
Could we be headed down that road again?
By Chris Cillizza | December 3, 2008; 4:38 PM ET
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Link:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/12/mn-senate_chaos_rules.html?nav=rss_blog:kick:
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