Minnesota is becoming to 2008 politics what Florida was in 2000 or Washington State in 2006 — a real mess. The outcome will determine whether Democrats get 58 members of the U.S. Senate, giving them an effective filibuster-proof vote on many issues.
When voters woke up on Wednesday morning after the election, Senator Norm Coleman led Al Franken by what seemed like a relatively comfortable 725 votes. By Wednesday night, that lead had shrunk to 477. By Thursday night, it was down to 336. By Friday, it was 239. Late Sunday night, the difference had gone down to just 221 — a total change over 4 days of 504 votes.
Amazingly, this all has occurred even though there hasn’t even yet been a recount. Just local election officials correcting claimed typos in how the numbers were reported. Counties will certify their results today, and their final results will be sent to the secretary of state by Friday. The actual recount won’t even start until November 19.
Read the whole thing here. By the way, the Coleman lead is now down to 204.
One of the big issues is "undervotes", ballots which had a vote for president but no votes for some of the down ballot races. There are a number of ballots cast that had votes for Obama, but no votes in the Senate race. How long until somebody makes the claim that anybody that voted for Obama would have also voted for Al Franken, and therefore he should be awarded those votes?
It happened thay way in Florida in 2000.
If it goes as I suspect it will Coleman's numbers will continue to mysteriously decline until at some point Franken takes the lead. At that point Franken and the media will demand that Coleman concede the race.
Just watch.
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