Franken Camp's Claim: We're Only Down By 84 Votes

By GottaLaff

TPM:

A key new development in Minnesota: The Franken campaign is now giving an actual figure for what they think their true current deficit against Norm Coleman is -- an estimated statistic that has proven elusive in this drawn-out process.

"The differential between the two candidates is 84 votes," lead Franken recount lawyer Marc Elias just told a press briefing. "That obviously is down from the starting point of 215."

The public numbers from the Star Tribune currently show Coleman ahead by 210 votes, with 77% of the total ballots recounted. But the Franken campaign points to an obvious flaw in those numbers: All challenged ballots, regardless of the merits of the challenges, are taken out of the count for now until the state canvassing board can make a final ruling.

The Franken camp, however, says its observers have taken down what the opinions were of the on-site election judges, and get their number by assuming that the local officials' calls will ultimately be upheld.

In another new development, the state canvassing board is going to take up the question of rejected absentee ballots at a meeting tomorrow. [...]

Elias also claimed some ballots might never been counted at all -- they could be stuck in the machines. "What you have here is a voting machine, and stuck in the bottom appears to be at least one ballot," Elias said, showing reporters a photo. "Now astonishingly, the election officials have refused our request to open the machine."

Pencils. Paper. Period.