Free Republic

On Dec. 8, 2000, supporters of Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush burst into cheers in the rotunda of the Leon County Courthouse in Tallahassee, Fla. They had just learned of a judge's ruling that absentee ballots cast in pro-Bush counties would not be thrown out. They taunted supporters of Democrat Al Gore with the song that baseball fans sing when an opposing pitcher is knocked out of the game. "Na-na-na-nah, hey hey, good-bye!" they chanted. Bush was pronounced the winner of the state of Florida, and the presidency, four days later, and the preservation of those "absentees" was a...

Things may not be going as well as Al Franken hoped in the recount, but don't tell that to Nate Silver. The numbers junkie behind FiveThirtyEight.com predicts that Franken will win the recount — once all challenges are resolved — by 27 votes. (Related: Franken losing ground to Coleman on DFL turf How'd he come up with that number? It's little complex — OK, that's an understatement — but Silver basically did a regression analysis using recounted precincts where there were few or no challenged ballots (Franken has done well there) and projected it across the rest of the state....

A correspondent writes: Just returned [from Crystal]. We counted the last three precincts without incident. Then the City Clerk made the announcement that she had found some absentee ballots that had not been processed yet from another previously closed precinct, Ward 4 Precinct 2. Apparently Friday afternoon she was given the order by SOS [the Secretary of State] to release the names of voters who had their ballots rejected. While canvassing the absentee ballots she found 8 ballots bound together that had not been processed on election night. She claimed they were valid ballots that had been filled out by...