Minnesota Recount Challenge
As previously discussed there is a fascinating system at the Star Tribune web site where you can play election judge and review the 5000 or so challenged ballots (though now down to I think around 3000).
As you vote on each ballot, the system starts to apply your voting pattern to the remaining ballots to show how your choices would play out in the election. It is a very interesting way to spend some time and I have made it through 600 ballots so far tonight (roughly 10% of the total).
Most (probably 98% or more) of the challenges I’ve seen are silly. On most of them, it was clear what the voter intended, just that the ballot was a little bit off from the norm (like the oval not filled in all the way, etc).
But, in most cases, the Senate oval matched the pattern of all the other races on the ballot and, in most cases, they voted a party line so it was clear how to assign the vote. I found maybe 5 cases where I tossed a ballot and in most cases it was either because they had clearly crossed out the oval (i.e. canceling the vote) or they hadn’t filled it in at all.
In a couple cases there was a real question because, in all the other races, they had filled in the oval but, in the Senate race, it was just a couple of marks or dots. In those cases (one for each candidate) I decided that the voter had chosen to skip the Senate race.
But again, for the most part, the intent was obvious.
Through 810 ballots, Coleman’s lead is down to 127 votes with a MOE of 200 votes, and there are still those 133 missing/not missing votes which could give Franken another 46 votes. So race is between a Franken lead of 119 and a Coleman lead of 327, at least based on my own counting.
Basically I’ve been being very liberal, as long as there was a reasonable intent shown I gave the vote. Only when it was impossible to tell or when it was clear they deliberately did not vote did I toss out a ballot.
It should also be noted through that, during the first 200 or so ballots, I had Franken up by more than 1,000 votes, so it just depends on if you hit a streak of Franken- or Coleman-friendly ballots.
But go ahead and give it a try. Let us know what you decide.
6 Responses to “Minnesota Recount Challenge”
I have counted 2725 votes. The truth is there is no way to project the data accurately because the challenges are fairly random and some counties came up more franken and others more coleman.
Your choices Coleman:1154 Franken:1319 Other:252 Remaining challenges:3,930 Projected totals, Coleman:1,211,757 Franken:1,211,968 Franken by 211 Margin of error:±86
UPDATE Total counted 5000
Resolved challenges, Coleman 2215 Franken 2438 Other/no one 347 Remaining challenges 1,655
Projected vote totals * Coleman 1,211,887 Franken 1,211,991 Franken by 104 Margin Error ±42
Was up most the day doing this, my methodology is voter intent. I operate under the assumption that the voter's intent is to not disqualify their own ballot and to cast or not cast their vote as they indicate.
I'll post a final update once I finish the count, but for now I must take a much needed rest.
My final results… Franken by 70 votes. It looks like those absentee ballots are now Coleman's best chance. Good luck to a hopefully senator-elect Franken. The challenged ballots definitely favor Franken heavily and it looks like just enough to win.
Thanks for the info. May God have mercy on us all.
Excellent, entertaining, useful reading, Thanks !!
awsome article men