Alan Abramowitz on Playing it Straight: The Minnesota Model of Election Administration
Late night comics have feasted on the disputed U.S. Senate race between the incumbent Norm Coleman and the Democratic challenger and former comedian Al Franken. News coverage has ridiculed the campaign’s hypocrisy and hyperbole. Commentators have lampooned inconsistencies and missing ballots, with one New York Times op-ed claiming that the outcome was “doomed” and should be decided by a coin toss because errors were inherent in an election decided by a few hundred votes out of 2.9 million. (Coleman and Franken each received 42 percent and a third party candidate received 15 percent.)
The ridicule from outside Minnesota is strikingly different, however, from the reaction among Minnesotans, 56 percent of whom judged the recount process to be fair in a recent SurveyUSA poll. Thirty-one percent of Minnesotans found the process unfair to Coleman; this is 11 percentage points below his vote share, suggesting that a number of his own supporters are persuaded that he has been given a fair shake even though the Republican’s 725 vote lead the morning after the election has now been reversed by the State Canvassing Board, which certified Franken the winner of the recount phase by 225 votes. Although many commentators outside the state have implicitly concluded that the process is flawed because of its lack of speed and efficiency, Minnesotans put a higher value on fairness and credibility even if it takes time and can be cumbersome….