Franken To Win Recount

FiveThirtyEight is a pretty good web site dealing with polls and other election realted number crunching. They predicted the outcome of the race for president almost as accurately as I did, so I figure they’re pretty good. And now, FiveThirtyEight has a reasonably good analysis suggesting that Franken is going to win the recount.

Here’s the argument in a nutshell. Franken is going to win because of all the reasons we’ve been saying all along (see this and this). But in some precincts, the Republicans are challenging a LOT of votes that are likely to be called as Franken votes, so they are NOT part of the current recount numbers that are coming out (see this). This effect … Republicans burying Franken votes in the challenge pile .. may in fact be increasing.

So, the vote is likely to be close but still favoring Coleman until the special board that will review the challenges is done with its work. Then the vote will switch over to Franken. And Coleman will be out.

FiveThirtyEight’s analysis is here.

Comments

#1 Zeno
November 23, 2008

It’s still too much of a coin flip for me, but I’ll stay hopeful that Franken ekes out a victory.
#2 D. C. Sessions
November 23, 2008

It’s one thing to be called “the stupid party.” It’s quite another to internalize it.

Have any of these Einsteins considered the consequence of establishing a blanket rejection of ballots with mismatched Presidential and Senatorial markings?

Remind me again of how the State’s Presidential vote turned out.
#3 Greg Laden
November 23, 2008

Right. This state went overwhelmingly for Obama.
#4 Moopheus
November 23, 2008

“until the special board that will review the challenges is done with its work”

And the special board is made up of folks who all voted for Dean Barkley?
#5 Greg Laden
November 24, 2008

The board consists of two Supreme Court justices, two district court judges, and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. Everyone involved is pretty happy with the makeup of the board. The contested ballots themselves are part of the public record.
#6 Bjorn Watland
November 24, 2008

I shall commence with such the happy dance when Coleman is paraded out of Washington. Now, can we please work on a plan to get Pawlenty out of here?
#7 Paul
November 24, 2008

Despite the intellectual mathematical rigor that 538 shows, I don’t buy that a Franken victory is in the cards.

I do think that post-recount, post-challenges, it will be extremely close.and no matter who “wins”, there will be court challenges. I think the net of all of this will just tilt Coleman’s way.

I can hope, but hope is not necessarily a plan.