Campaign Diaries

This hearing is truly porn for political junkies! Instead of depending on imprecise poll numbers or rapidly shifting election night returns, the horserace has here been reduced to its smallest possible unit: the individual ballots.

Challenged ballots are being subjected to extensive (but surprisingly harmonious and cordial) examination, allowing us to witness debates with results that immediately change the the Franken-Coleman margin.

Unfortunately - though not surprisingly - hours of proceeding today don’t really help us figure out whether Franken or Coleman gained an edge today. The reason for this is that only Franken challenges were considered today, and we need to be able to compare the proportion of Franken challenges that are upheld and of Coleman challenges that are upheld. We will not know this until the board starts going through Coleman challenges.

Today, the board went through 160 ballots challenged by Franken; 97 have been attributed to Coleman, 22 to Franken and 41 could not be attributed to either candidate. (A Franken challenge could mean either a challenge to a ballot initially judged to be a Coleman vote that Franken thinks is a “no vote” or a ballot initially judged to be “no vote” that Franken thinks should be a vote for him.)

This means that more than a quarter of Franken’s challenges are being upheld. This is a solid ratio that should not be considered as a disappointment for Democrats - but it is a ratio that means nothing by itself.

The board engaged in some intricate discussions, setting precedents that will hold over the next few days. For instance:

1. Should a passport number written at the bottom of a ballot be considered an identifying mark (the ballot ended up being counted)? What about a social security number?
2. What about a filled and crossed-out oval, for example on this ballot? (The board quickly established that for a voter to cross out an oval they had filled means they were trying to cancel their vote.)
3. What about initials appearing next to a vote? (The board established that initials would be permitted if they were written next to a crossed-out oval as the voter’s attempt to confirm that he intended to cancel his filling, but they would be considered an identifying mark in other circumstances?)

There were many more types of ballots that were examined today, including some truly bizarre cases that left the judges puzzled. One interesting example was a ballot with nothing but a presidential write-in vote for Micky Mouse; there was also a dot in the Franken oval, which led Franken’s campaign to challenge the ballot and ask for it to be counted for Franken. The challenge was rejected. And what to do about ballots like this one (it ended up as a “no vote” but a similar mark was counted as Coleman)?

There have been a number of 3-2 votes on whether to reject or upheld a ballot. Secretary of State Richie - a Democrat and the board president - voted in favor of Norm Coleman on at least one of those 3-2 votes, unexpectedly costing Al Franken a vote. (This is significant as the GOP accused Richie of taking partisan decisions to help Franken early in the recount process.)

Both candidates have dramatically reduced the number of challenges from more than 6,000 to about 1,000. It is possible the canvassing board could be done by Friday.