A blog about politics.

Lizard People Could Be Decisive in Minnesota

The great Senate race recount of 2008 continues apace in Minnesota, with former funny guy Al Franken, the Democrat, enjoying a net gain of 46 votes over former furniture vendor Norm Coleman, the Republican, not counting ballot challenges. That leaves Coleman's advantage over Franken at about 200 votes, out of 2.9 million cast, but those numbers don't mean as much as anyone might like. That's because both Coleman and Franken have challenged more than 1,500 votes, which must be adjudicated by the state canvassing board next month.

Math wiz Nate Silver, over at fivethirtyeight.com, uses his modeling magic and predicts that things are going well for Franken. "The various versions of the model project a Franken win by between 48 and 136 votes once all ballots are re-counted and all challenges are resolved," he writes. But Democrats can't celebrate yet, because the margin of error of Silver's analysis is plus or minus "at least" 200 votes.

Which means we all still have time to sit back, relax and wonder just what the "Lizard People" voter in Minnesota was thinking. This fine citizen both filled in the bubble for Al Franken and wrote in a vote for "Lizard People." The county auditor/treasurer has ruled that this is an invalid overvote. Franken's representatives have challenged that decision. I am looking forward to the press conference when Franken admits that he is in fact one of the "Lizard People," which might help his case before the canvassing board. To see pictures of some of the challenged ballots, including "Lizard People," click here.

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  • 26

    Elvis:

    Only before Cox got her "nouveau pixie" cut, hula hoop earrings and and a big-ass bottle of Visine.

  • 27

    gysgt
    .
    Does it happen when you are posting links? Thats what usually gets me

  • 28

    I thought Lizard People was funny. (But I think lizards are pretty funny.)
    -
    Another day, another $800 bailout.
    -

  • 29

    Anybody else watching Bush give his address to the armed forces and how the soldiers behind him look ooh soo bored?

  • 30

    SG,
    .
    When I first posted in KT's thread I included a link. Maybe that is what got me. I didn't do it with Michael's until after the first post.

  • 33

    sg, Karzai has to pretend he's a real president every now and then.

  • 34

    yogi
    .
    I agree and he should really or it will continue to invalidate his presidency as just a stooge for the U.S. and thus the regular Afghanis will never truly back our mission there. But this demand stands to phuck everything up at a time when we are about to have a leader in office who can actually help the people of Afghanistan in a meaningful way with rebuilding their infrastructure and also taking the fight to the Taliban and al Queda. He needs to keep pushing for an end to the air raids that are killing innocents but trying to demand a time table just doesn't seem productive to me

  • 35

    I should add that part of my problem with it is I can hear Republicans saying stuff like "See See, first we get a timetable with Iraq and now Afghanistan wants one. Whatcha gonna do now Mr smarty pants Obama?" And I just really don't want to have to hear all that. And yes its sad that I can think like Rush Limbaugh on occasion

  • 36

    sgw-
    You mean "react", not "think".

  • 37

    It very educational and reassuring insofar as most people have very sensible reactions to ambiguous inputs.
    .
    I saw the MNPR thing a few days ago, via Washington Monthly, I think. What struck me was there were no close calls, in my opinion. What the voter intended to do was clear, except for the lizard people ballot. But that's not hard to count either.
    .
    Even the person who circled one of the black boxes to the left which are probably there as benchmarks for the scanner was clear.
    .
    One of the things that struck me when I voted was how many people didn't know how the machine worked. In my precinct, we still have the big machine with the little levers you flip to cast your vote and the big lever you pull to register your vote. At least a third of the people in line didn't know how it worked.

  • 38

    The person who filled in Lizard People clearly didn't actually vote for Lizard People for Senate, since the voter only filled in one oval - for Al Franken. OTOH, that person did vote for Lizard People for the preceding race, by blackening the oval, so the voter did understand how to indicate a preference. Perhaps he or she considered Lizard People for Senate before rejecting that option.

    There's another ballot with the same issue, where a voter filled in the oval for Coleman while writing in (but not selecting) Bachman. That vote should count for Coleman, so these 2 are a wash.

  • 39

    jayackroyd,
    When I lived in NY I always voted with those machines with the switches and levers, too. I much prefer them to optical scanners.

  • 40

    For a number of years we've been voting with touch machines. I wish we would go back to those old switch and lever machines because they have a paper trail and the new ones don't. There is no way to do a recount now.

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