Will Al Franken win?

[ccharles000]

I think he will.

[marylanddem]

1. He's a pretty amazing guy.

[MichDem10]

2. I love Al - but recount is not going well

Coleman has a net gain of 19 in St Louis county (heavily Dem area)the gap does not appear to be closing fast enough. For all o the hoppla of the 20,000+ undervotes in the Minnapolis/St. Paul area there has been little movement toward Al. That being said - my fingers are still double crossed.

[hlthe2b]

3. I thought Al had closed the lead down to 120 or so votes...

and that the remaining votes to be recounted included a majority of predominently DEM counties.

Is everything I thought I'd read from TPM, 538.com and elsewhere off base?

Here's what fivethirtyeight.com is saying:

A majority of the state's ballots -- some 64 percent -- have now been re-counted. The counties re-counted to date have been slightly redder than the state as a whole, favoring Coleman by an aggregate of about 1.6 points in the initial count. The difference has diminished, however, as more re-counted ballots roll in from Franken-friendly areas like Minneapolis.

[IndianaGreen]

4. I sadly agree with you. The gap is not closing fast enough.

Coleman still ahead by over 100 votes. :-(

[pathansen]

20. He will win! Challenged votes are now almost 1900 and . . .

According to Democrats, Republicans have been making lots of desperate, frivolous challenges.
See: http://minnesotaindependent.com/18242/franken-campaign-decries-frivolous-challenges

[TheBigotBasher]

5. 60+% for Al

If only DU could vote everywhere!

Realistically speaking - I would not like to be either candidate at the moment.

[musicblind]

6. I voted "other" because I don't know n/t

[quakerboy]

7. seconded.

Edit to add that as much as I dislike Franken, I hope he wins. But given the recount numbers so far, I don't think that anyone can be sure what the final outcome will be.

[Subtropical]

8. Me too.

This one's going to hurt though, if Al doesn't pull it off. His heart was really in this.

[thoughtcrime1984]

9. He will not win, although I really want him to. Coleman by 100 votes in the end. Minnesota loses yet

again.

[Two Americas]

10. we need a recount

We need a recount now on this poll.

The numbers I just looked at suggested that rural precincts are finishing their recounts before urban precincts (higher percentage of precincts reporting when compared to the percentage of the total vote being reported). If that is true, Franken is likely to win. Does anyone know which precincts are finished and which are not?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. I think he'll get the lead down to two figures, but not win, at the rate it's currently going.

N.T.

[Thegonagle]

25. Due to the challenges from both sides, there is no "rate it's currently going."

There are something like 1500 challenged ballots, rendering a so-called lead of a couple hundred by either candidate meaningless at this point. We won't know anything until the canvassing board meets in mid-December.

The good news is that a good number of the Coleman challenges appear to have come because the voter voted for McCain and Franken. Good luck with those, Colie-poo. It's not going to work.

[Liberal Progressive]

12. If Minnesotans have any sense, yes.

Norm Coleman is not exactly a good guy.

[breadandwine]

18. The Coleman win was in the election itself, not the recount.

And the same in many states. There was too much of a discrepancy between vote totals and exit polls. Votes were stolen on election day, especially with electronic voting machines. Obama overcame that with a massive turnout but down ticket many Obama voters failed to vote for all the Dems. There were many young first time voters who voted for Obama in 15 seconds and exited the polling without bothering to vote in the local races.

[pathansen]

22. Independent Party candidate spoiled race for Al Franken with 15% of vote

He was also running on the VOTE FOR CHANGE issue.
So we had 2 "Vote for Change" candidates and he took the Independent votes.

[Orsino]

13. I dunno. I hope so.

If he continues to gain in the recount, though, that'll be ammunition for Minnesotans to take a good look at why the goddamned voting machines always seem to vote Republican. If a hand recount tips the election against the machines' candidate, perhaps the state will wake up.

[Thegonagle]

24. Funny how the ones bitching about OUR machines, most of which were purchased in the mid-late 90's,

aren't from Minnesota, and clearly have no idea just how well put together our election laws are. Every procedure in Minnesota is done because it is the law. Even our former SOS, republican Mary Kiffmeyer, couldn't mess with the voting machines, because there are checks and balances at every turn. (Kiffmeyer's shtick was to try to prevent registration, but she couldn't mess with the vote itself.)

We have automatic hand recounts written into statute based on the inaccuracy rate of scanners that were purchased in the mid 80's (the "connect the arrow" style), which was a little less than 0.5%. The Diebold Accu-Vote and ES&S scanners most counties use nowadays are far more accurate. They will usually pick up the on the smallest of marks within the oval, but there is still a small error rate (often it's voter error), hence, the automatic hand recounts. Furthermore, it is verified that every scanner is reset to zero on the morning of an election by several election judges, and at the end of the night, the scanner prints out a paper tape of the results from that individual scanner. That tape is treated with as much security as the ballots themselves after the election.

By the way, did you know that there were three other Minnesota races (for state legislature) that went to automatic hand recount in the 2008 general election, and we already had a state-wide hand recount in the primaries for Minnesota supreme court justices? I'm guessing not, because they don't make the news. However, it is rare that there is not an automatic recount for some county, district, or city in a Minnesota election.

[Orsino]

27. Mighty strange thing to be proud of...

...that you have a back-up plan for when the machines fail--not that I'm not glad of it.

It may well be that Minnesota handles the process better than any other state, but that's damned faint praise. Electronic machines are an invitation to fraud, cant read minds, and ought to be eliminated completely.

There's also very nearly no such thing as "voter error." That a voter fails to live up to a machine's expectations doesn't take precedence, IMO, over the state's responsibility to register that voter's intent. Every ballot ought to be hand-counted.

[Thegonagle]

28. Actually, I am damn proud of this. We use technology to expedite the process,

but we know that technology has its glitches. That's why we already know the results of every single race in MN except for this one. Therefore, they are hand counting every ballot. I'd hate to have to wait days or weeks to know that Obama won MN on November 4. Wouldn't you too?

[Orsino]

29. Hand-counting doesn't have to take weeks.

Our neighbors to the north know this, and prove it every election.

It does, however, take the involvement of dedicated people, if we forego the apparent convenience of the machines.

[Egnever]

14. Nope and if coleman wasn't such a huge scumbag i would be pleased about it too.

[political_Dem]

15. I hope he will. I loved his two books. They were fantastic and timely.

[Joe the Liberal]

16. One can only hope......

I think he can pull through but we'll see.

[MrSlayer]

17. Most likely not.

Should have been a no-brainer considering Coleman's ass sucking of Chimpy but Minnesotans are a different breed.

[pathansen]

23. Franken will win - Repubs making lots of silly,desperate challenges!

See:
http://minnesotaindependent.com/18242/franken-campaign-decries-frivolous-challenges
Otherwise, Third party candidate, w/15% of vote, spoiled race for Franken.
He took more votes away from Franken than Coleman.

[DFW]

19. I fervently hope to be proven wrong, but I have a bad feeling about this

And that's not good for one who is optimistic by nature.

I find Coleman (and Georgia's Chambliss) disgusting, and would cheer so loudly
upon hearing of their defeat, you would be able to hear me all the way from
Düsseldorf, so here's hoping I got this one dead wrong.

[saltpoint]

21. Yes.

[a kennedy]

26. Want him to win......

but I voted "other". :cry: