2/16/2009

MN Judges make decisions on Absentee ballots in Senate race

The Star Tribune has this:

On its face, the ruling looked to be a victory for DFLer Al Franken, whose lawyers had urged the judges to turn down 17 of the 19 categories and said Friday that they had very nearly done it.

"We are obviously very pleased with the court's decision ... there's a large chunk of ballots that have now been taken out of play," said Franken lawyer Marc Elias.

But Coleman's attorneys saw it differently, saying that the ruling leaves untouched about 3,500 of the 4,800 rejected absentee ballots they want the court to open and count, enough to make it possible for Coleman to overcome Franken's 225-vote certified recount lead. . . .


Assume that 20 percent of the ballots go to the third party candidate. Coleman would have to pick up 54.1 percent of the remaining absentee ballots to overcome Franken's 225 vote lead.

UPDATE: I have posted on this before, but I should have made it clear here. These absentee ballots are from Republican counties. Absentee ballots tend to be even more Republican than overall voters in Republican counties.

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2 Comments:

Blogger James D. Miller said...

Is there any reason to think that these ballots would on average favor Coleman?

2/16/2009 12:08 PM  
Blogger John Lott said...

These disputed absentee ballots are from Republican counties. Democratic counties have already included a large number of previously rejected absentee ballots, but the Republican counties had more strictly followed state law on what ballots to include.

2/16/2009 1:12 PM  

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