The Star Tribune reports:
By day's end, with about 18 percent of the vote recounted, Coleman continued to lead Franken -- but by only 174 votes, notably narrower than the unofficial gap of 215 votes at which the recount had begun. Franken's gain owed much to a swing of 23 votes in the Democratic stronghold of St. Louis County -- the result of faintly marked ballots and older optical scanners that failed to read the marks. ...
Campaign monitors from both sides had challenged a total of 269 votes statewide, with Coleman observers disputing 146 ballots while the Franken camp challenged 123.
What impact does "challenged" ballots have on the tally? Nate Silver explains:
When a vote is challenged, it is deducted from the opposing candidate's total. These challenged votes will go before the state canvassing board in December and be debated (and debated and debated) one by one (by one by one).
This means that challenged ballots could likely be decisive one way or the other. (And, frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if many of the pro-Franken ballots that the Coleman camp is challenging are more tenuous challenges than Franken's challenges, meant to put Franken-votes in limbo and keep the overall tally as favorable to Coleman for as long as possible.) By recount's end, expect many hundreds, if not a couple thousand, challenged ballots. MyDD's Beeton summarizes the first day's progress:
Certainly, so far, the numbers are moving in the right direction but Franken's going to need to slash that margin at a quicker pace if he's going to overtake Coleman. Some good news for Franken: the two largest counties, Hennepin and Ramsey, which are both Franken strongholds, have only just begun to count (5% and 15% of votes respectively so far.)
Needless to say, stay tuned.
UPDATE: The margin is down to 168 votes. |
