Part one wasn't called "My Look at the Recount" though I wanted to name it that I felt the more important revelation of my last diary was the fact that I had found proof that Franken's people are honest. So that's what I called it.
For those of you who haven't read that diary The Star Tribune has a section on their site where they let the public look at the ballots that have been challenged by both campaigns. There have been nearly 6,000 ballots challenged total and I sat there in a non-partisan experiment and counted all 599 of those ballots, it was tough but rewarding. When we last left they allowed people to view exactly 599 of those ballots here were the results of that count.
Out of 599 contested ballots judged
Norm Coleman 253
Al Franken 246
Over/Under/Other Votes 100
With a MoE of +/- 4 votes. Because the Star Tribunes website is kind of buggy and sometimes doesn't display a ballot forcing you to use the skip button. That happened 4 time last time around. Just so you know the site also gives you a estimate of what the other visitors who completed the count thought. According the the majority of Star Tribune visitors I under counted Franken's votes last time.
Coleman 266
Franken 279
Over/Under/Other Votes 50
Today they updated the site and now the public is allowed to view 1,007 of the challenged ballots by both campaigns. For those of you who don't remember my standards for counting ballots allow me to reiterate it.
First and foremost I believe, as Minnesota law states, that the intent of the voter is the most important thing. So no matter what else, if the intent can be determined it counts. I don't care about so called "identifying marks" or crazy things scribbled in the margins. Nor do I care if there is a problem with their vote for President or Mayor or whatever.
I care about the SENATE RACE and the voters intent first and foremost.
Anything else is none of my concern. The more ballots counted the better in my view, I see no reason to disenfranchise people who made the "horrible mistake" of signing their ballot or scribbling a star on it as they tried to decide who to vote for.
Now, I would LOVE to go back through these ballots sometime and treat each one the way my teachers in high school used to treat our Scantron tests. If that bubble wasn't exactly perfect, you didn't answer the question. No ifs ands or butts. You could fail a test by leaving the bubble slightly unfilled in. That would be great, and probably more fun to do! But the law states Voter Intent and that is what I care about. Besides if I was that strict we'd end up with only about 100 ballots being counted total.
This time around there was a whole lot more odd ballots. This one is an absentee ballot where the voter made a mistake, scribbled it out, corrected it and signed his/her initials to signify that they corrected the error. The same way you would do on a personal check. Now according to the law "identifying marks" should cause this ballot to be thrown out and that is exactly what the Coleman people want to happen.
But his/her initials are nothing more than letters of the alphabet to anyone who doesn't know his/her name. Just as a fingerprint is not at all legible unless you're trying to convict the voter of a crime. Just as stars do not tell you who this ballot was cast by. Just as a sloppy signature and a scribble can be one and the same. Intent trumps privacy, counting the ballot will not encourage or discourage anyone from killing this voter. Nor will counting the ballot hurt anyone. As for the voters privacy they waived that when they signed the ballot.
This is another weird one. There was apparently a mismatch in totals and this absentee wasn't counted on election night so the Coleman people are challenging it. That ones just odd. And last but not least This Jackass used a Primary Ballot to vote. Now intent is clear. BUT you know damn well this person was not handed this ballot on their way into the booth. So how did it get in the ballot box? We almost have to assume the person who "cast" this "ballot" also cast a real one and in my opinion this one should be tossed out.
This next one needs a photo to accompany it.
Not only do you have to question if that squiggly circle signifies intent in the race below the Senate race. But because of the Straight Democratic Party nature of the ballot do you count this as a Coleman vote or an Under Vote? It looks to me as though the voter voted for Coleman and then realized his mistake and instead voted for nobody and because of the fact that it is the only bubble on the ballot to be X'ed out in such a way I counted it as an under vote.
This next one also requires an image to fully understand.
In this example both Senate Candidates are marked. Which makes intent nearly impossible to know, but one of the candidates has an X in its bubble. Big deal, does that signify a mistake or an affirmation? Well the entire ballot is Democratic. Which lead me to believe the Franken vote was intended.
This one also needs a picture just to be believed!
Now, I counted this one because Franken was the Democratic candidate. But the Coleman people believe the voter didn't even know who they were voting for. And while that may be true are you going to hold the fact that they can't remember a candidates name against a soldier serving over seas in Iraq? The intent is clear and that should be enough. If it said "Republican" I would count it just as well. In fact there was one and I did it.
This last one is the worst. No picture but goddamn. People people people. YOU CAN ONLY VOTE FOR ONE PERSON!
Amazingly after digging around a little bit I found the actual state guidelines for determining voter intent and I was pretty damn close. To read those check out Section 204C.22 of the Minnesota Election Laws. According to 204C.22 most of these challenges will be dismissed just as many of us have suspected.
That said here are the guidelines I used, since I only just now found the official state guidelines a moment ago. Keep in mind when in doubt I looked at the entire ballot for context.
So-called "Over Votes" or what I call "Dumbass Votes" because even though it says "Vote For One" over every single race still they vote for 2 or more. These ballots are thrown out unless intent can be clearly established and as I said in my last diary an X doesn't always do it. Is that X canceling out your first choice or confirming your choice? Theres no way to know. People use X's for both purposes. So there are two bubbles marked and neither stands out as the obvious choice which means that ballot gets tossed.
However the examples below have pretty clear intent and were counted:
So called "Under Votes" are treated in the following way. Is their a candidate marked? No? Than it doesn't count. Yes? Can you tell which candidate they intended to vote for? That candidate gets the vote. Under Votes are caused by a lot of things. Usually because the voter used a Check Mark or X instead of filling in the bubble. Sometimes they don't even mark the bubble but circle the candidates name. If intent can be established the vote counts. If the slate is clean than it's a true undervote.
Example:
If a filled in bubble also contains an X it counts if no other candidate was marked so long as it was in keeping with the rest of the ballot. In the example below every bubble was marked in this manner.
Example:
If two bubbles were marked. One completely filled in and one simply scribbled or dotted, the vote went to the completely filled in bubble.
Example:
If multiple bubbles were marked or intent was otherwise hard to establish but one of the candidates names appears in the write in section, that candidate got the vote.
Example:
If any candidate was circled, checked or underlined (all positive symbols) that to me signified intent and they got the vote.
Example:
If two bubbles were marked and one of the candidates name was scribbled out the other candidate got the vote.
Example:
If two or more bubbles were marked and one candidate had the voters signature, initials or the date that signified intent and the candidate got the vote.
Example:
Now before I get to the final score I wanna say this was one of the few Senate Races I was even remotely interested in this election year. Franken knows his shit. He has been through these issues forwards and backwards. I was a huge fan of his Radio Show on Air America where he dissected these issues on a daily basis. I own all of his books that are the perfect historical log of the Bush years. And I grew up watching him on SNL.
With that said I kept my personal feelings and bias out of my decisions during this recount review. I looked at the ballots honestly and tried to figure out what was going through the voters mind when they cast their ballot.
It was far more difficult and time consuming this round because of the fact that there were a great deal more legitimate challenges than last time. In the last batch about 75% were frivolous challenges that shouldn't have even been in there. This time a great number of the ballots had to be carefully inspected to determine intent.
That said lets take one final look at last times score board to get a reminder of where we were.
Out of 599 contested ballots judged.
Norm Coleman 253
Al Franken 246
Over/Under/Other Votes 100
And now the moment you've all been waiting for. This times results.
Out of 1007 contested ballots judged.
Norm Coleman 410
Al Franken 439
Over/Under/Other Votes 158
Now there is once again a MoE of about +/- 3 votes because of the same website error that was happening last time. But Franken surged in this latest round. Remember Franken finished the last batch of ballots with an approximate 7 vote deficit and now he leads by almost 30 votes. And again I was being completely neutral politically.
Now while there is no guarantee my results will at all mirror the canvassing boards final decision, so far things look pretty damn good for Al Franken. The states election laws (that I linked too above) lay out rules that are very similar to the guidelines I set for myself. If those rules are followed Franken has a real chance at this.
Because he's good enough, he's smart enough, and doggone it, people like him!