Minnesota Senate recount nears end: Coleman leads by 787 votes

http://news.google.com ^ | Dec 5, 2008 | By Todd Melby

[Maelstorm]

The recount has swung back and forth between the two men, with batches of uncounted ballots being discovered here and there as well as clerical errors changing the totals.

With the recount virtually complete on Friday, Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said Coleman led Franken by 787 votes. Local newspapers put Coleman's margin at about 200 votes, tallying ballots that had previously been challenged.

[justiceseeker93]

I saw Coleman leads by 787 votes.

If you look at the Secretary of State site and do the arithmetic, you will see that Reuters made an error of 100 in Coleman's favor. The lead for Coleman, according to the SOS, is 687.

[Salvation]

**they haven’t backed down and have went head to head with Franken’s thugs.**

AND — they haven’t been whiny like Franken has been, crying to Reid, for Pete’s sake.

[TYVets]

But, but the DDM is always right.

[cherry]

you are right about the pacs....I think they are more directed, can take more chances, and it seems they outdo the party's best......

I guess we need to support the Pacs ALL thru the year if we can...so they can have a nice stockpile.....

we have to remember about this election is that zero had ALL The money and the media and the right timing in a bad economy....he should have won no matter what.....but Sarah really did put a little scare in him and the media didn't she....

after all is said and done, nearly 60,000,000 people voted against the zero..

[justiceseeker93]

My apologies to you, billva. I now see that the headline on this thread was very misleading, because the tally on the Minnesota Secretary of State site does not include one precinct, which is in all likelihood the one in which the "missing ballots" occurred.

The source of the discrepency between the SOS site and the Star Tribune site is that while the SOS does not include any tallies from that Dinkytown precinct, the Star Tribine includes the original tally. Therefore, the real recount margin is undoubtedly much closer to Coleman +192, pending adjustments that might be made as a result of the Dinkytown precinct recount.

BTW, the "lost ballots" have not been found despite a very thorough search of the premises where they were believed to have been "lost", and the Dem bureaucrat in charge there seems to have given up the pursuit. Since the "lost ballots" were included in the original tally, It would seem as if they are included in the Star Tribune tally. So if they are not "found" for the recount, it seems as if Franken will lose a net of 37 votes from the recount tally, which would put Coleman at about +229 when the recount tally is complete.

All this confusion seemed to have arisen because the SOS proclaimed the recount at the precincts over, while the SOS site did not include the tally from the one problem precinct.

[billva]

Thanks, let’s hope Coleman continues to hold on.

[justiceseeker93]

No changes on the SOS site since Friday, so I suppose that either the Dinkytown precinct hasn't officially reported its recount numbers to the SOS office or the SOS has been lazy about putting them up on the web site.

What do you make of that?