I checked out some of the disputed ballots on the MPR site, specifically those from Hennepin County (the most populous county, which Franken won by 91,649 votes in the initial count).

They had 187 disputed ballots, which I tried to assign based on “intent of the voter”–if one candidate had a full oval and the other had a dot, the full oval got the vote; if two candidates had an oval but one was crossed out, the non-crossed-out candidate got the vote; if a voter mismarked the entire ballot in the same way, the marked candidate got the vote, etc.

Based on this small sample and my own judgment, Franken got 92 votes, Coleman 70 votes, Barkley 6 votes and there were 19 non-votes (either under- or over-vote). This in a county where Coleman challenged 830 ballots and Franken challenged 696 ballots. At this rate (net gain of 22 votes in 187 challenges), Franken would net 180 votes in challenges, IF this were a representative sample of challenged ballots. In this sample, it was not clear which candidate challenged the ballots, except for a few which were challenged because an election judge did not initial the ballot, although the “intent of the voter” was clear.

This is a county were Franken won by a large margin, but Coleman gained 105 votes in the recount by making more challenges, but resolving the challenges tends to favor Franken.

This could be counter-balanced by counties where Coleman won the original count, but Franken netted votes in the recount by making more challenges. In most cases, the county winner made FEWER challenges than the loser, and lost votes during the recount, and this trend could reverse itself when the challenges are resolved.

If either none of the challenges or all of the challenges are upheld, Coleman wins. The key to the election is which candidate has a greater fraction of valid challenges.

Steve Z on December 2, 2008 at 5:49 PM

Just for grins, I checked out the MPR ballots for Meeker County, a relatively small county won by Coleman 5,649 to 3,865 in the original count, where Franken netted 43 votes in the recount, a surprisingly large shift for a small county. There were 51 challenges by Franken and only 7 by Coleman.

The MPR site showed 52 of the 58 challenged ballots, and using the same criteria as for Hennepin County above, I got
Coleman 45 votes, Franken 4 votes, Barkley 2 votes, and 1 undervote. This would wipe out all but 2 votes of the Franken shift in this county.

Surprisingly, a lot of these voters were mismarking the ballot, most of whom marked their choices with X, not only for the Senate race, but for all races. These votes might not be picked up by the machine count, but ALL of these voters ONLY marked one candidate in each race.

Are these frivolous challenges by Franken? A lot of these voters did NOT “follow instructions” to fill in the oval, but only marked their choices by an X or check mark. But if the Canvassing Board wants to judge the “intent of the voter”, Coleman will regain most of the votes he lost here.

I wonder how many other challenged ballots in other counties have clearly-marked X’s or check marks by the chosen candidate…

Steve Z on December 2, 2008 at 6:57 PM