Coleman down to 21 on Intrade after double hit today

[Hokie]

I know this recount in the Minnesota Senate race is confusing if you have only been following it casually. There were two major happenings today and they both are huge for Al Franken. First, the state canvassing board began reviewing the Coleman vote challenges. They had completed the Franken challenges yesterday thanks to the Franken campaign's withdrawal of all but around 400 of those challenges. One big unknown was how successful the Franken challenges would be compared with Coleman's challenges. Tuesday and yesterday Franken was successful at a rate of 29.4%. The board started reviewing Coleman's challenges today and after about half of Coleman's challenges were reviewed his success rate was only around 12%. Several counts now show the race is almost tied. Coleman's lead is estimated to be around 5 votes going into the final day of judging the challenged ballots. Franken is almost certain to gain more tomorrow even if Coleman improves his success rate because the majority of the votes being reviewed are votes that were ruled for Franken and challenged by Coleman.

Second, the Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that the rejected absentee ballots in the "5th pile" as determined by a uniform standard must be counted. This should also help Franken as most experts believe that Franken won a majority of the early and absentee ballots.

So, this is why even though Coleman is still ahead by single digit votes most people following the recount think Franken will ultimately win.

[RollWithIt]

1. Nice

Al Franken to the US Senate? Still shaking my head that the crazy rascal might pull it off.

[Hokie]

2. Al's going to win this

I made a prediction on DU that he will win by 125 votes. I will have to dig and find it because it may turn out to be close.