Goshdarnit, people DO like himFollow

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/04/minnesota.senate.race/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) -- A state election board on Monday will announce Democrat Al Franken has defeated Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race, state officials told CNN Sunday.

Another Republican bites the dust.

Finally.

Well, after exhausting all his legal challenges. Which I don't blame him for since it is an amazingly close race but it's funny to remember Nov 5th when he was telling Franken to just give up and observe the will of the people.

Wait, why were these rejected ballots not included with the others?

There was a pile of absentee ballots that, for whatever reason, hadn't been opened and were "rejected". The two candidates had an inane agreement where both of them had to agree on a ballot to open it. Naturally, neither candidate wanted ballots opened from districts in which their opponent was doing well. So I think a bunch stayed sealed. I'm not sure what the reason was for the initial rejection on them; I assume it was for various reasons depending on the ballot.

Although out of a large group that was opened from primarily Coleman leaning districts, Franken expanded his lead from 50 votes to 225. So I suppose opening them could benefit Franken but he has no reason to tempt fate and now Coleman has nothing to lose in praying that they would recover his lead.

Edited, Jan 5th 2009 12:30pm by Jophiel

The sheer volume of irregularities, both in the voting and in the recounting is pretty amazing actually.

Yeah, no. In point of fact it'd absolutely be dramatically worse in most states. The fact that most elections don't require counting all of the votes doesn't mean the process to do so would somehow magik it's way along on fairy dust if it were required.


massively more so than even the most rabid arguments about the Florida recount of 2000.

Ahahahahaha. Wow, who sold you that one, sucker? It's nowhere close to the problems in Florida in 2000. Man, the GOP propaganda machine is REALLY desperate these days, isn't it?

Given that I'm sure Gbaji will be parroting it anyway, the Wall Street Journal ran an editoral complaining about the recount results.

And people thought Rupert wouldn't get his money's worth.

I'm curious under what definition you believe that qualifies as a "rebuttal"? Saying "They're wrong!" over and over isn't normally considered a valid rebuttal. Not one fact or figure was presented in that second link. There was a whole lot of eye-rolling though, which I suppose passes for rebuttal for some people.


The WSJ editorial was pointing out the interesting fact that the canvassing board choose to either accept/certify the recount totals or the election night totals, with the only apparent consistency being that the choice resulted in vote gains for Franken. Even when the totals could not possibly be correct (more votes counted than people who signed in to vote in that precinct), the board certified the tallies anyway. Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, that should at the very least raise an eyebrow. And the guy in your link saying "Well, if this was true I'd have heard about it!" is a bit weak IMO. He attacks the fact-checking of the WSJ, but apparently does so without doing any of his own. He just assumes that since no one walked up to him with official documents showing this to be true, that it must not be...


Silly me. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the WSJ did more fact checking then your so-called debunker did. If they say that as many as 15 precinct resulted in more votes being counted than signed up to vote than, barring someone presenting facts to the contrary, I'm going to assume those numbers are accurate. I mean, who should I believe? An editorial in the WSJ, or some guy on a web site?


EDI: Make that quote "more than 25" instead of "as many as 15". Numbers R hard!

Edited, Jan 5th 2009 6:08pm by gbaji

Huh? There are eight links in the text of the "rebuttal" you linked Joph:

One is to the WSJ editorial.

One is to an article showing that the board certified the election results (which is not in question).

One is to an article discussing the makeup of the board (which is also not in question). Although the phrase "right leaning" is more than misleading IMO. Two clear progressives, two conservatives, and one independent is not by any stretch of the imagination "right leaning". And the article he linked to doesn't say that they are, so that's clearly just his own labeling (which kinda clues us in as to which "side" he's on here, don't you think?)

Two are links to court decisions. Which are *also* not in question. Whether or not some judges decided one way or another doesn't invalidate an argument from someone disagreeing with the decision(s).

One is a link to an email written by Coleman's attorney disagreeing with the idea of double counting early on. Nice, but that doesn't mean that the issue with inflated ballot counts after the recall made since then are the same thing, nor does it invalidate the WSJ questioning why there are so many cases where this has happened.

One is a link to a site discussing placement of provisional members of congress. Something that's also not really in debate, but for the record is irrelevant, since the WSJ editorial was specifically discussing Minnesota state law. Whether other state's have allowed provisional seating while elections are ironed out, isn't at question. Whether that's legal under Minnesota state law *is*.


The *only* link to any sort of evidence to question the claims in the WSJ editorial is a link to another article on the same damn site and by the same guy. Linking to yourself as "proof" is a bit strange, don't you think? And guess what? I read that link, and his logic is just as bizarre there as well. At least he has numbers, but his analysis misses the point. The WSJ is not talking specifically about whether or not those votes should or should not have been counted. The WSJ editorial was pointing out that in that case, the board choose to stick with the original vote count, while in another similar situation, it choose to go with the higher number of votes in the recount.

If we assume the point was to pick the count that was closest to the number of signed in voters (plus absentees) at any given precinct, then they should have counted the initial election night totals in both cases. But the board choose to use the higher count which was closest to the sign in number in one case, but then used the higher count from a recall vote in which there were magically more ballots than sign ins (again, plus absentees and whatnot).


Presumably, the point is to be accurate, not just have as many votes as possible. The 538 guy does not address this issue at all, even though quotes the very paragraph in which this point is brought up in the WSJ editorial. While he clearly seems to think that "more is better" (or as he puts it "counting every vote"), that's his opinion. The opinion of the WSJ is that the board should be looking at accurate counts, not just taking whichever is the highest number. Because counting more votes than were actually cast isn't really "counting every vote". It's counting votes that weren't cast, or were fraudulently or mistakenly cast, or double counting some votes. In any case, that actually has the effect of eliminating someone else's vote. More isn't better in this case...



Yes. Things like numbers of votes over the count in one place versus another. Numbers of votes gained by Franken as a result of inconsistently choosing to go with the number closest to the sign-in number in one case, but farthest in others. The number of precincts in which this practice has resulted in total vote counts greater than the number of people who should have been able to vote there.

Just because you don't agree with what the numbers mean doesn't mean that they aren't there. Again. If someone's going to question the WSJ's facts, shouldn't he provide counter facts himself? The only thing he provides *any* information on does not refute any numbers at all. Just the reasoning (whether votes were double counted or lost in Precinct 1). Again. That's irrelevant, since the WSJ piece wasn't about that, but about how the decision making process seemed to be inconsistent across the board (or consistent in a way that benefited Franken, to be more accurate).

Had he presented some facts showing that the vote counts weren't higher than the sign-ins in any districts (let alone 25 as the WSJ claims), I'd at least give him the benefit of the doubt. But he just blows off that claim without apparently spending any time researching it at all.



It doesn't when those aren't facts in dispute. It's like I'm arguing that a car was speeding, and you counter that the car is red. Um... Ok. That's nice, but it doesn't counter my statement. Same thing with the linked page. Lots of words and implication, but no actual rebuttal of any kind.



Again. If the WSJ comes up with a number like 25 precincts in which the recount process resulted in more votes being counted than people who voted in those precincts, I'm going to assume that they didn't just make it up. Unless your hero of the moment can actually refute the claim. But he didn't. He just blows it off. To me, that's the crux of the WSJ editorial. That the board has inconsistently chosen whether to go with the election night numbers or the recount numbers based apparently solely on which has a higher total vote tally (at least that's the gist of what I've seen so far). It observes that this practices has helped out Franken far more than it helped out Coleman (obviously, since Franken went from being a couple hundred behind to a couple hundred ahead during the recount).

If you're doing a recount, the assumption is that you should take the recount numbers unless there's some overwhelming reason to think that the recount numbers can't be right. But that doesn't appear to be the case here. They're not always taking the recount numbers, nor are they always taking the election night numbers. They're doing so purely based on which has higher numbers. And if you're the "side" that thinks that some ballot stuffing (by whatever means and at whatever time) may have gone on in some precincts, this is kind of a relevant point, don't you think?

Edited, Jan 5th 2009 8:30pm by gbaji

I'm sorry. Were they supposed to list them in the editorial for you? It was written just today. Maybe others are asking the same question, but instead of just assuming that they made the number up, perhaps the WSJ will supply the data they used to make that statement? Just a thought. I'm not assuming something either way here. I am going to give a editorialist the benefit of the doubt until someone comes along and proves that a statement made was incorrect.




Ok. But the WSJ say there were 25 precincts ("more than" technically). That's a bit too specific to just be a guess. We can speculate as to the quality of their information, but clearly they got that number from somewhere.

The rebuttal consists entirely of "I haven't heard this before, so it must not be true!". You've got to admit that that's kinda weak...



Neither is "proven" Joph. I'm not saying that the WSJ is right or wrong. I *am* saying that this Silver guy's page doesn't "rebut" anything. That's it. If/when some other third parties come along and check the WSJ numbers, then we'll have a better idea how accurate that statement in the editorial is.

All I'm saying is that I'm not going to assume the WSJ statement is wrong based on the page you linked. Because nothing on that page constitutes a valid rebuttal of the WSJ editorial. That's not to say I wouldn't like the WSJ to provide the facts they based their statements on, but there's a world of difference between questioning the accuracy of the WSJ editorial and blanketly labeling it wrong because this guy says so...



No. I'm saying that I don't know. I didn't write the editorial, so how can I? Until someone actually presents counter numbers or facts, I have no reason to doubt the WSJ numbers though. Get it? And your guy didn't do that. He didn't even come close...



It's an editorial Joph. It's presenting an opinion. I know that it's one you disagree with, but you don't get to assume that the facts stated in the editorial must be untrue simply because you disagree with the position held by the writer.

Wait... did we want "facts" or no? I mean, I'm just asking here. Because generally facts are supportable.Aaahh.... now I see. It's a "fact" because it's a number! Of course! Why, if they had said 25.67 that'd make it even more of a fact because it'd be more specific! Now I gotcha.No, the rebuttal consists of "This makes no sense, has no supporting evidence and if it were true then why didn't Coleman jump on this ages ago?"Wait... you were calling the statements made in the editorial "facts", weren't you?

"If someone's going to question the WSJ's facts, shouldn't he provide counter facts himself?" - Gbaji

Are these the sort of "facts" that can be right or wrong? Because I think maybe someone should have bought you a dictionary for your birthday.No, you're assuming it's right because you like it.Wait now... so is it just an opinion or is it facts or is it an opinion based on facts that might not be true facts but are probably real facts because they were specific facts that might be right or wrong?

You're kind of all over the board here scrambling to defend yourself.

The dude from the WSJ who wrote the piece was on the local AM station this morning, mainly just repeating highlights from his column. I was going to call and ask him for a couple specific examples of precincts where the number of votes counted was higher than the number of signed-in voters (a claim he explictly made on the show) but sadly he only talked for a couple minutes and then departed without taking any calls.

Sure. But that has resulted in a set of separate decisions that when looked at as a whole, manage to benefit the Democrat candidate pretty significantly.

The significance of Ramsey is that it's in direct contrast to another county (Hennepin). In Hennepin, there were more votes cast on election night then there were ballots when they did a recount. They choose to stick with the election night totals instead of the recount because that total matched up with the number of people who signed in to vote. The Franken crowd argued that some of the ballots must have been lost. There's no proof of that except that the number of ballots was less than the number of sign-ins. Unproven, but reasonable IMO.

In Ramsey, it was the other way around. During the recount, there were *more* ballots than those cast on election night and more ballots than then number of sign-ins. In that case, the election night totals also appeared accurate because they matched the number of people who signed in to vote. In this case, the Coleman crowd argued that duplicate ballots were likely created for damaged or spoiled ballots, but were not properly labeled as such. In this case, the canvassing board took the recount numbers even though they didn't match the sign-ins.

Those two represent completely opposite situations. One in which there were too many ballots after a recount, and one in which there were too few. In both cases, the original election night count matched the number of people who signed in. If the argument used in one to keep the original election night numbers over the recount numbers was valid in one case, it should have been equally valid in the other. But that's not what happened.

There are only two commonalities between those two decisions:


1. They both result in higher vote counts. As I mentioned earlier, I don't think this is a good reason to keep one over the other, but it *is* a common factor.

2. In both cases, the result was increased votes for Franken over Coleman. The election night totals over the recount totals in Hennepin gave Franken a gain of 46 votes. The recount totals over the election night totals in Ramsey gave Franken a gain of 37 votes.


The Coleman argument has been that because of this process of inconsistent decisions, Franken has picked up a pretty significant number of votes. The editorial says that there are "more than 25" precincts in which the result of the recount is that more votes are being counted than the number of people who signed in. So it's not just one or two locations. Again. I don't know where exactly the WSJ got that number from. I could speculate that it's based on one of the Coleman legal challenges in which they specifically mentioned 25 precincts in which vote counts were incorrect (although the motion language isn't perfectly clear on this and I haven't taken the time to research it completely).


I agree that different precincts should each be handled separately. But you'd expect that there should be some kind of standard being applied across them all, right? And I'd suspect that the number one standard should be that if you have two possible vote counts to use and one matches the number of people who showed up, and the other doesn't, you should tend to lean towards the one that matches, right? That's most likely to be the correct one.

But what's happened is that it seems like every single challenge and legal action has gone Franken's way, even when they are completely inconsistent. One or two could be ignored as typical randomness in our legal decision making process. But it's happened with a regularity that is beyond just coincidence and random bad decision making. And that's what the editorial was about.