Minneapolis Star Tribune runs my letter correcting their attack on my numbers

I still wish that they had run a correction, but a letter to the editor is still worth something. This letter is largely based on my piece from Fox News last week.

The pieces on the Opinion Exchange website ("WSJ numbers don't add up") and in Tim O'Brien's Nov. 13 Blog House column attacking my work on the Minnesota recount were inaccurate. The Star Tribune's claims have been picked up by other media and used by the Franken campaign.

Just correcting "typos" in how the votes were recorded reduced incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman's lead from 725 to 206 votes when Minnesota counties certified the votes on Nov. 10.

Using the vote totals from Nov. 9, I pointed out that Franken's net gain was huge -- "new votes for Franken from all the precincts is greater than adding together all the changes for all the precincts in the entire state for the presidential, congressional, and state house races combined." A Star Tribune editor claimed "[Lott's] numbers are simply wrong. ... I don't know what statistical calculation Lott was using, but Obama clearly got more from the corrections."

The Star Tribune argued that Obama's net gain was 1,121 votes -- much bigger than Franken's, and thus evidence that nothing unusual had occurred in Franken's race.

Why the difference? . . .

The piece was the most read piece in the Star Tribune's editorial page on Sunday.


An update on the ballot recount in MN from SCSU Scholars can be found here.