Thursday, December 18, 2008
Why I'm not watching the recount
Polinaut has a good explanation:
So stop watching the recount, Leo! That's what they pay the lawyers for. I know some of the rulings are odd -- John Lott has used some pictures to show us how the count is going, though the results on the STrib website seem to get changed regularly -- but until we know how the withdrawn challenges are being added back into the totals, we have no bloody idea where the count is. Forgive my flippant-ness here; real-time data just tends to be real messy and there's a tendency to be fooled by randomness.There are hundreds, if not thousands, of challenged ballots that have been withdrawn from both campaigns. We're not certain if those ballots will be dedicated to Coleman, to Franken or to the Other pile. The Secretary of State's Office is working to process the withdrawn ballots and redeclare the vote to the call made by the local election official during the recount.
What makes things tougher is that the campaigns are now restoring some challenges that they withdrew earlier. They're doing this because they know that the board is acceptable to certain challenges. They are also withdrawing challenges that they know have no chance of being upheld.
Labels: Coleman, elections, Franken
