Minnesota Senate Recount -- update 2

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For some good links, and more detailed analysis, see Update 1 from last Friday.)

The recount continues. According to the Star Tribune, Coleman currently has a lead of 180 votes over Franken, with 68 percent of ballots recounted, up from a Friday lead of 120. What explains the increase? "Some of that may be attributed to the increased number of Franken ballots challenged by Coleman's campaign, which removes those ballots from the count."

Even after the recount is completed, there will no doubt be a tense battle over those challenged ballots, as well as over thousands of rejected absentee ballots.

**********

Although the number of challenges from each side is about even, Nate Silver proposes that "[v]ery probably, a majority of the challenges are coming from Franken's pile. This is somewhat irrespective of which campaign actually instigates the challenge, since... a potential Franken undervote could be the subject of a challenge from either campaign depending on the initial ruling of the local elections judge."

Furthermore, Nate shows mathematically that there is a "strong" relationship between the number of challenges in a precinct and how well Franken is doing: " What this means is that Franken is actually "a very slight favorite" to win the recount. "Nevertheless, there is good reason to believe that the high rate of ballot challenges is in fact hurting Franken disproportionately, and that once such challenges are resolved, Franken stands to gain ground, perhaps enough to let him overtake Coleman."

Nate predicts that Franken will win by 27 votes.

Read his post. It's complicated.

I'll be back with more soon.