Franken Jumps Out to 225-Vote Lead on Strength of Absentee Ballots

By GottaLaff

Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease.

Nate the Great at Five Thirty Eight:

Minnesota took until 5 PM today to begin actually counting rejected absentee ballots, as the Canvassing Board sorted through various legal objections, underwent the arduous task of physically opening more than 900 ballots, and then gave the campaigns a chance to review the back of the ballots for identifying marks. Once they finally got underway, however, with election officials calling out the names of the candidates one ballot at a time, Franken went on a long winning streak and essentially never looked back.

All told, Franken gained a net of 176 ballots from the 952 under review according to The Uptake's unofficial count, putting him 225 votes ahead in the recount overall. Excluding disqualified ballots, Franken won 53.7 percent of the votes counted today, Coleman 34.1 percent, and other candidates 12.4 percent. Franken's 225-vote advantage is now slightly larger than the one Norm Coleman held before the recount began, when he led by 215 votes based on the certified Election Night tally.

Although the absentee ballots were expected by all observers to help Franken's prospects, the nearly 20-point margin that he ran up on Coleman today was surprisingly large [...]

Either way, a number of legal stratagems that might have seemed appealing to the Coleman campaign might now be somewhat mooted. [...] With Franken doing so well among the absentee ballots that were counted today, moreover, any Coleman attempts to get more absentee ballots counted would seem to have a high risk of backfiring.

Ohhhhhpleaseohpleaseohplease...