Al Franken
He’s good enough and he’s smart enough, and who cares if the Republicans don’t like him. Yup, Al Franken is expected to be declared winner of the Minnesota senate race — but don’t worry, it’s almost assured that his opponent will launch a bunch of lawsuits over ballot minutiae.
Mind you, that’s exactly the sort of minutiae that got us through the recount in the first place, and if there’s anything we’ve learned, it’s that Minnesota has a damn good electoral procedure.
How much you wanna bet that it was a bunch of policy wonks in a room that came up with all of these rules and regulations, and every “ordinary person” in every coffee shop in the state probably thought it was a giant waste of money and time, and just a bunch of eggheads doing stupid political things that would never matter.
Me, on the other hand, I love the byzantine pathways that we have to go down, when we find out that, hey, this contingency actually was planned for!
Great site on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, by the way, for checking out actual scans of all the disputed ballots: (link)
My favourite was one that was challenged as spoiled, even though it was filled out perfectly, just because the voter had written across the bottom: “Thank you for counting my vote.”
This is another interesting tale:
“I’m an election judge,” said [Shirley] Graham, of Duluth. “I expected to be the last person whose ballot wouldn’t be counted.”
Surely you’re kidding! (And don’t call her Shirley!) (Wait, you can call her Shirley, that’s her name.)
As always, great commentary and analysis on FiveThirtyEight.com here and here.
Up next: the Roland Burris fight! Yay Blago!
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