171 uncounted ballots turn up in Ramsey County; Franken nets gain

Links (10)

Newly-Discovered Ballots Boost Franken
Published 12/2/2008 by John at Power Line
... A precinct in Maplewood, a St. Paul suburb, discovered 171 ballots that had not previously been counted earlier today. Apparently the precinct started using one electronic machine, which malfunctioned after 171 ballots had been cast. The precinct switched to another machine, but until now, it appears that no one remembered to pull the 171 ballots out of the original machine and count them. ...

Franken catches a break?
Published 12/2/2008 by Steve Benen at Political Animal
FRANKEN CATCHES A BREAK?.... You probably thought, as I did, that the recount in Minnesota's Senate race couldn't possibly take any more strange turns. Think again . The final day of ballot recounting in Ramsey County in the U.S. Senate race kicked up controversy today when 171 uncounted ballots from Maplewood turned up. The ballots apparently had been uncounted because of a ballot-counting machine malfunction on Election Day. Although the official numbers were still being tabulated, representatives from U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's campaign said challenger Al Franken appeared to ...

New Ballots Found in Minnesota
Published 12/2/2008 at Taegan Goddard's Political Wire
In the final day of the Minnesota U.S. Senate race recount, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that 171 uncounted ballots suddenly turned up and "apparently had been uncounted because of a ballot-counting-machine malfunction on Election Day." ...

Franken picked up 37 votes from machine with uncounted ballots. This one is far from over.
Published 12/2/2008 by Joe Sudbay (DC) (noreply@blogger.com) at AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth
This is another reason why recounts matter. Ballots were missed in the initial count -- and Al Franken benefited to the tune of a not insignificant total of 37 votes: ...

Campaigns Focus on Absentee Ballots in Minnesota
Published 12/2/2008 by By Michael Falcone at The Caucus
... recounted. And the memorandum issued on Tuesday by Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann only asks that cities and counties sift through the rejected absentee ballots, separating out those that may have been improperly dismissed. They are to be organized into five piles, four of which would contain ballots rejected for reasons set out by the state. The fifth pile would include ballots that were dismissed but did not appear to meet state standards for rejection. Also on Tuesday, local news sources reported that 171 previously uncounted ballots surfaced in Ramsey County, ...

Franken's Good Day Shifts Odds on Recount
Published 12/2/2008 by noreply@blogger.com (Nate Silver) at FiveThirtyEight.com: Politics Done Right
... The second piece of cheery news for Franken is that officials in Ramsey County have "discovered" a stack of 171 ballots that were never counted in the first place; those ballots returned a net of 37 votes for Franken. This is a very big deal; a net gain of 37 votes makes a huge amount of difference in a race that could easily be decided by a small, double-digit margin. If the 37-vote gain in added to the 50-vote margin that the Franken campaign estimated that it trailed by at the start of the day, that would put them just 13 votes behind with 8-9 percent of the state's votes ...

Saxby Chambliss has won.
Published 12/3/2008 by Ann Althouse (annalthouse@mac.com) at Althouse
The Democrats cannot reach 60 in the Senate. So can Al Franken stop trying to steal the election in Minnesota? blog advertising blog advertising

Chambliss wins in Georgia, Coleman maintains lead in Minnesota
Published 12/3/2008 by mjwstickings@yahoo.ca (Michael J.W. Stickings) at The Reaction
... Minnesota: The recount continues... Democratic challenger Al Franken picked up 37 votes in Ramsey County today, when 171 votes were found to have been uncounted "due to a combined machine malfunction and human error," according to the Star Tribune. Still, with 93 percent of votes recounted (and with more than 6,000 ballots challenged), Republican incumbent Norm Coleman leads by 303. (The Franken camp ...

A Good Day for Al
Published 12/3/2008 by Nick Baumann at MotherJones.com | MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary
... polling guru Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com. The Franken campaign estimated on Tuesday morning that it was only 50 votes behind using the assumption that all vote challenges will be rejected (more than 6,000 challenges have been filed so far). That estimate was before Franken netted 37 votes from a batch of 171 previously uncounted ballots that were discovered in Ramsey County. But why doesn't the way the Secretary of State reports ballot totals make sense? Nate Silver explains: ...

Is Al Franken Winning by 22 Votes?
Published 12/4/2008 by John McCormack at Weekly Standard Blog
... where 133 fewer ballots turned up than were reported on election day. (Yesterday, Franken picked up 37 votes in one precinct where 171 previously uncounted ballots were found.) ...