Election-Campaign Law

A contrarian prediction on the Minnesota recount

By Charles Stewart III

The obsession with the changing vote margin in Minnesota is missing the big story, which is the much larger number of ballots that have been challenged by the two campaigns.  Franken’s people have challenged 777 ballots that otherwise would have been awarded to Franken.  Coleman has challenged 747 votes that would have gone to Franken.  The vast majority of these ballots were not included in the original count.  Assuming that most of the challenges will be thrown out (after all, an impartial observer has already gone on record allocating the ballots to one of the candidates), Coleman is actually gaining back many of the votes he is losing through the recount proper.  It looks like Coleman could gain even more votes before it is all over.  My prediction?  When the entire process is over, Franken will have only gained a net of 30 votes over the original margin.  Coleman is going to stay in the Senate.

Full post as published by Election Updates on November 21, 2008 (boomark / email).