Yes. It's impossible to get a perfect count unless we find some perfect beings to do the counting. Frankly, I think there should be some sort of rule stipulating that if a recount would alter the outcome but lies within the margin of error, you should ignore the recount and go with the original result. Because what you've effectively done is decided to go with a new result based on statistical noise.
What? No. Margin of error is purely a polling concept, based on the fact that you only ask a sample of the population. A vote does consist of the entire population so there isn't any margin of error, only human error, which I guess might be what you're referring to, but that isn't quantifiable in anyway so you can't use it in the way you intend.
Yes, I mean human error, and yes, it's quantifiable. I've seen estimates of between 0.05%-0.1%. Taking the low end just to be safe, on a sample of 100,000 votes, you wouldn't overturn the result on a margin of victory of less than 50 votes. And so on.
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ZimmydoomAccept no substitutesRegistered Userregular
So who cares? Did he kill Wellstone? No? Then he was democratically elected. Democrats like to piss and moan when a Republican gets in, but that's what happened. He's now faced another election, without anyone dying, and has once again won it. So what's the problem? The fact that he's not a radio host? That he's never written any absurd pro left books? I'm confused as to the extent of his crimes.
He didn't kill Wellstone, and he may not have danced over his corpse, but he did absolutely exploit his passing and the events that followed to win the seat. Following Wellstone's death there was a large service held for his friends and former colleagues, both as a tribute to Wellstone and as a way for the Minnesota Democratic Party to have some closure. At this service there were a number of teary, powerful speeches given by his friends talking about Wellstone, with a general sentiment of "win it for Paul" behind most of them. Given that Wellstone himself was well known for being by far the most progressive member of the Senate and an uncompromising idealist, these people also made reference to the passion he had for his work in that regard. His autobiography was called "Conscience of a Liberal" for Christ's sake.
Two very important people were at this event. One was the governor, Jesse Ventura, who was not doing well at the time. The media had turned on him by then, treating him like an empty blowhard with a gimmick instead of a statesman, and "The Body" had gone from being a political "outsider" and moderate to being a frothing, psychotic embarrassment and a national punchline. By all accounts he had never gotten along with Wellstone. At the rally he repeatedly made a spectacle for himself, sighing loudly or grumbling over speakers and generally acting like a fucking child. At one point he actually stormed out of the service, angrily telling everybody within earshot how it was all a sham and how the Democrats had turned it into a "political rally" instead of a memorial service, that it as all a cold and cynical attempt to rally the troops instead of remembering Paul. The speech he walked out on? Rick Kahn, Wellstone's best friend who by all accounts was sobbing openly while giving an anecdote about how much Paul loved his family, and how proud they were of the work he did.
When they heard about Ventura's antics, the national Republicans jumped all over it. They screamed to the rafters that it was all a disgusting circus, that the Democrats were exploiting Wellstone's death to win an election, that it was all an attempt to raise campaign funds for that dirty liberal Walter Mondale who by the way wanted to raise taxes before Reagan saved us all from a fate worse than death. There were talking heads on every news channel trumpeting this line and backing Ventura (who loved the attention) and insisted that he was the only principled man in the room when by all accounts he was a petulant, disrespectful shit. The campaign had nothing to do with Coleman or Mondale and their policies, nothing to do with Minnesota, and everything to do with the Republicans running one of the dirtiest campaigns in recent memory. This was the same election, remember, when Max Cleland was beaten in Georgia by ads comparing him to Saddam Hussein and calling him a bin Laden sympathizer.
So, that's how Coleman won. He let the worst of the RNC tar a respectable man (Mondale) while hiding behind the corpse of his predecessor. And the other Important Person in the room during that rally?
Al Franken, who had been a friend and supporter of Wellstone. The events of that rally and what followed prompted him to write Lying Liars and start Air America, because in his mind it was no longer about being funny, it was about being angry. So if he has been personally acrimonious and quick to anger during this race, remember why. It's personal for him. He's trying to win it for Paul. You may not agree with him, and it's perfectly reasonable to have doubts about a man who looks at his campaign as a way to avenge a fallen friend, but don't for one fucking minute think that it's because he's just a naked opportunist, or that Coleman isn't 10,000 times worse.
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Frankly I'd vote for a ham sandwich for senate over a Republican, given the last few years of republican governance. At least the sandwich wouldn't vote in favor of wiretapping.
I mean, what's your issue here tube? You don't like franken, awesome. He'd still be better than coleman.
Why? Because he's not a Republican? My issue isn't with Franken or Coleman, it's with people who immediately jump to hate the Republican candidate or whine about Republican candidates winning democratic elections. Just saying things like "he'd be better than Coleman" means nothing. When challenged as to why Coleman is so bad the best anyone has come up with is "well a guy died right before he was elected and so he came in based on that" and some ludicrous wrangling copy pasted from some guy's blog desperately trying to pretend that Franken has won.
It's the lazy thinking that bugs me. What's so bad about Coleman? Plenty of people are able to express what they don't like about Franken, and you'll have to do a lot better than "he's a Republican!" because believe it or not, being a Republican isn't an objectively bad thing and the belief that it is (and the reverse from conservatives) is sending the country to the fucking dogs.
We have kind of a lot of objective evidence that Bush-style Republicans are demonstrably terrible at the business of governing. Norm Coleman is a Bush sycophant who in the days before the election had a potential corruption case revealed around him.
Edit! He went from chair of Wellstone's 1996 campaign and a staunch Democrat to a Bush Republican because the state party apparatus didn't like him and he wanted to run for higher office and that would be easier to do as a Republican and so flipped most of his positions (except choice, he's always been against that) to fall in line.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Frankly I'd vote for a ham sandwich for senate over a Republican, given the last few years of republican governance. At least the sandwich wouldn't vote in favor of wiretapping.
I mean, what's your issue here tube? You don't like franken, awesome. He'd still be better than coleman.
Why? Because he's not a Republican? My issue isn't with Franken or Coleman, it's with people who immediately jump to hate the Republican candidate or whine about Republican candidates winning democratic elections. Just saying things like "he'd be better than Coleman" means nothing. When challenged as to why Coleman is so bad the best anyone has come up with is "well a guy died right before he was elected and so he came in based on that" and some ludicrous wrangling copy pasted from some guy's blog desperately trying to pretend that Franken has won.
It's the lazy thinking that bugs me. What's so bad about Coleman? Plenty of people are able to express what they don't like about Franken, and you'll have to do a lot better than "he's a Republican!" because believe it or not, being a Republican isn't an objectively bad thing and the belief that it is (and the reverse from conservatives) is sending the country to the fucking dogs.
If I have to choose between two people who are approximately equal douchebags, but one will vote for my agenda and one won't, I'm going to go with the guy on my team.
In addition, 30 seconds of looking on wikipedia shows me that he opposes my views on Iraq, gay marriage, abortion, drilling in ANWR, marijuana legalization, and Social Security. Franken may not be a great candidate, but he's more in line with my views on these issues, and having an additional Democrat in the Senate means that the party's platform as a whole is much more likely to produce actual results.
It's the lazy thinking that bugs me. What's so bad about Coleman? Plenty of people are able to express what they don't like about Franken, and you'll have to do a lot better than "he's a Republican!" because believe it or not, being a Republican isn't an objectively bad thing and the belief that it is (and the reverse from conservatives) is sending the country to the fucking dogs.
As best I can tell, Franken is no better or worse than Coleman. However, Franken in office will put an extra Dem in the senate, which will make it that much easier for the Dems to enact their legislation. Given that the Pubs in congress, in concert with the Bush administration, have been the source of much of the problems our nation is currently in, and given that their proposed solutions suck, and given the severity of our current problems, it is reasonable to want to make it as easy as possible for an Obama administration to push through it's agenda without fear of knee-jerk Republican stonewalling.
Once we get the nation off life-support, we can worry about getting someone in the senate who's not a complete asshat.
ElJeffe on
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Yes. It's impossible to get a perfect count unless we find some perfect beings to do the counting. Frankly, I think there should be some sort of rule stipulating that if a recount would alter the outcome but lies within the margin of error, you should ignore the recount and go with the original result. Because what you've effectively done is decided to go with a new result based on statistical noise.
What? No. Margin of error is purely a polling concept, based on the fact that you only ask a sample of the population. A vote does consist of the entire population so there isn't any margin of error, only human error, which I guess might be what you're referring to, but that isn't quantifiable in anyway so you can't use it in the way you intend.
Yes, I mean human error, and yes, it's quantifiable. I've seen estimates of between 0.05%-0.1%. Taking the low end just to be safe, on a sample of 100,000 votes, you wouldn't overturn the result on a margin of victory of less than 50 votes. And so on.
Gimme a link, I want to see how someone came up with that number. It just doesn't seem possible without knowing the perfect, exact numbers compared to the reported ones.
Gimme a link, I want to see how someone came up with that number. It just doesn't seem possible without knowing the perfect, exact numbers compared to the reported ones.
I don't have a link handy, though you're free to google it if you wish. IIRC, the methodology was based on comparing the results of successive hand-counts for various elections. If the hand-count tallies vary, well, then there must've been some human error.
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ZimmydoomAccept no substitutesRegistered Userregular
edited November 2008
And BTW, yes Franken is a petulant shit and a douchebag. But you know what? He's our douchebag, and after 30 years of Reagan and Lee Atwater and Karl Rove and George W. Bush and Sarah Palin and innumerable invented controversies and feigned indignation and "Real American" bullshit, I think I can live with having one angry nutjob on our side for once. If he wins and he sucks, he'll be gone in six years. The Pubs are going to paint a giant target on his back regardless of any legislative success he might have, anyway. If he wins and successfully defends his seat in 2014, he'll have earned it.
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Okay, new brilliant idea: In the event of a very close race, the winner is decided by a game of Trivial Pursuit.
I distinctly remember hearing in the news about some election (Governor of somewhere? Mayor of somewhere? Don't remember) being decided by a game of five-card stud after the vote recount came up with an exact tie.
But I don't have a link, so this might be some bullshit I'm remembering wrong.
Yes. It's impossible to get a perfect count unless we find some perfect beings to do the counting. Frankly, I think there should be some sort of rule stipulating that if a recount would alter the outcome but lies within the margin of error, you should ignore the recount and go with the original result. Because what you've effectively done is decided to go with a new result based on statistical noise.
Not true. The point of recounts in most states is that they replace the fast, typically mechanical method of counting ballots with a slower, more accurate method - typically a hand count. The new result is more accurate, and therefore should be preferred over the old one.
In the case of Minnesota, they use optical scanning technology - fill in the bubble with a pencil and the machine counts it. But Minnesota state law says that if the voter's intent is clear, the vote must be counted, regardless of whether it is countable by the machine. So if a voter puts a checkmark or an X in the bubble, rather than filling it in, the machine will miss it but a hand recount will count it.
And BTW, yes Franken is a petulant shit and a douchebag. But you know what? He's our douchebag, and after 30 years of Reagan and Lee Atwater and Karl Rove and George W. Bush and Sarah Palin and innumerable invented controversies and feigned indignation and "Real American" bullshit, I think I can live with having one angry nutjob on our side for once. If he wins and he sucks, he'll be gone in six years. The Pubs are going to paint a giant target on his back regardless of any legislative success he might have, anyway. If he wins and successfully defends his seat in 2014, he'll have earned it.
Do you really think Al Franken is the only "angry nutjob" on the liberal side? Really?
OremLK on
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But does it matter which can't-tell-if-it's-true-or-noise result you go with? Maybe when it's within the margin of error there should be a "best of recounts" victory.
It just seems that in the case of a within-the-MOE victory, the fairest thing is to go with the first result. Barring that, you'd have to do a best-of-three or something, and that's a ridiculous amount of work to do. It's a great injustice if 90% of people choose candidate A and candidate B gets in. Not so much if 50.01% choose candidate A and candidate B gets in - B was still chosen by about half the electorate, and will represent the will of the people roughly the same as A.
Except that in this case we know the first result was definitely not correct - one of the reasons the margin has closed before the recount even begins is that some precincts misreported numbers - 270 votes as 27 for example.
The whole point of the manual recount is that we go through every ballot and triple-check them so that in the end we can come out and say "this is the most accurate count we can come up with." It would not be fair to say "well this is also within the MoE for humans so we'll go with the original" because the recount is supposed to be more accurate.
And BTW, yes Franken is a petulant shit and a douchebag. But you know what? He's our douchebag, and after 30 years of Reagan and Lee Atwater and Karl Rove and George W. Bush and Sarah Palin and innumerable invented controversies and feigned indignation and "Real American" bullshit, I think I can live with having one angry nutjob on our side for once. If he wins and he sucks, he'll be gone in six years. The Pubs are going to paint a giant target on his back regardless of any legislative success he might have, anyway. If he wins and successfully defends his seat in 2014, he'll have earned it.
Do you really think Al Franken is the only "angry nutjob" on the liberal side? Really?
I want to punch you in the junk while yelling Tu Quoque! the whole time.
Okay, new brilliant idea: In the event of a very close race, the winner is decided by a game of Trivial Pursuit.
I distinctly remember hearing in the news about some election (Governor of somewhere? Mayor of somewhere? Don't remember) being decided by a game of five-card stud after the vote recount came up with an exact tie.
But I don't have a link, so this might be some bullshit I'm remembering wrong.
There was a mayoral race decided by a coin flip on the 5th. Both guys were write-ins and neither wanted the job, apparently. :P
Do you really think Al Franken is the only "angry nutjob" on the liberal side? Really?
In the Senate? He'd be the only blue seat with that level of crazy, yes. Biden was the liberal Big Chief Blowhard, but he's not in the Senate anymore, and he was still extremely qualified and well-respected.
The House is chock-full of lunatics on both sides, but it's the House. It's supposed to be run by the inmates.
Zimmydoom, Zimmydoom
Flew away in a balloon
Had sex with polar bears
While sitting in a reclining chair
Now there are Zim-Bear hybrids
Running around and clawing eyelids
Watch out, a Zim-Bear is about to have sex with yooooooou!
The whole point of the manual recount is that we go through every ballot and triple-check them so that in the end we can come out and say "this is the most accurate count we can come up with." It would not be fair to say "well this is also within the MoE for humans so we'll go with the original" because the recount is supposed to be more accurate.
Except the point of the hand recount being within the human MoE is that it is effectively a tie. The result isn't that A won, the result is that A and B are tied. That being the case, why is it inherently more fair to go with the new result? We have an inaccurate count that says A won, and an accurate count that says it's a tie. I can see an argument for going either way, honestly, but I like view the recount as a means of determining whether or not to overturn the original result.
It's like in football when they have a coach's challenge. The original ruling stands unless there is clear evidence that the ruling was wrong. The analogy would be having the refs signal a touchdown, the opposing coach challenging it, and the refs looking at the video and seeing how there might be some reason to believe that perhaps the guy's foot touched the line before he crossed the plane. You don't overrule the touchdown because your more careful and accurate assessment shows that there might have been a mistake. You stick with the original call.
ElJeffe on
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The real purpose of the recount in Minnesota, because they all use scantron type paper ballots I think? is too try to determine voter intent on ballots that were undercounts (didnt fill bubble in right, circled a name, whatever).
Except that there were uncounted provisional ballots, right?
And isn't it just true that manual recounts are more accurate? I was under the impression that they were, simply stemming from computer errors, or mismarked ballots, etc.
The deal with hand recounts is that every single vote gets scrutinized by multiple people, who decide together whether or not the vote is valid. So if there is an error, it has to pass through multiple people, and any challenges from lone dissenters.
The real purpose of the recount in Minnesota, because they all use scantron type paper ballots I think? is too try to determine voter intent on ballots that were undercounts (didnt fill bubble in right, circled a name, whatever).
You mean like people sneaking in a 3H pencil rather than an HB (#2) to fill in the bubble for Democratic/Republican precincts?
:P
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ZimmydoomAccept no substitutesRegistered Userregular
The whole point of the manual recount is that we go through every ballot and triple-check them so that in the end we can come out and say "this is the most accurate count we can come up with." It would not be fair to say "well this is also within the MoE for humans so we'll go with the original" because the recount is supposed to be more accurate.
Except the point of the hand recount being within the human MoE is that it is effectively a tie. The result isn't that A won, the result is that A and B are tied. That being the case, why is it inherently more fair to go with the new result? We have an inaccurate count that says A won, and an accurate count that says it's a tie. I can see an argument for going either way, honestly, but I like view the recount as a means of determining whether or not to overturn the original result.
It's like in football when they have a coach's challenge. The original ruling stands unless there is clear evidence that the ruling was wrong. The analogy would be having the refs signal a touchdown, the opposing coach challenging it, and the refs looking at the video and seeing how there might be some reason to believe that perhaps the guy's foot touched the line before he crossed the plane. You don't overrule the touchdown because your more careful and accurate assessment shows that there might have been a mistake. You stick with the original call.
If that's the case then the right thing to do would be a special runoff like Georgia is having, but Minnesota doesn't do that.
Honestly I think that any election within the 0.5% MOE should go to a special runoff regardless of the circumstances or level of the race, but because we let every state make their own stupid laws we always end up with bullshit like this.
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ZimmydoomAccept no substitutesRegistered Userregular
Except that there were uncounted provisional ballots, right?
And isn't it just true that manual recounts are more accurate? I was under the impression that they were, simply stemming from computer errors, or mismarked ballots, etc.
Like Geckahn said.
I don't believe that Minnesota has provisional ballots, because you can register day-of by giving an oath to an election judge at the polling place even if your vote is challenged. There are undervotes, however, and Minnesota has very liberal regulations WRT interpreting "voter intent." If a ballot is marked inelligible due to an undervote (as about 6,000-7,000 were IIRC) then they will look at those ballots at the time of the recount to check if there is a way to determine who the vote was intended for. Based on Nate Silver's math this could result in around 206 more votes for Franken, which hilariously enough is the exact difference between them at the moment.
Zimmydoom, Zimmydoom
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Had sex with polar bears
While sitting in a reclining chair
Now there are Zim-Bear hybrids
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Watch out, a Zim-Bear is about to have sex with yooooooou!
Yes. It's impossible to get a perfect count unless we find some perfect beings to do the counting. Frankly, I think there should be some sort of rule stipulating that if a recount would alter the outcome but lies within the margin of error, you should ignore the recount and go with the original result. Because what you've effectively done is decided to go with a new result based on statistical noise.
You're actually not, Jeffe. The fact that you are reviewing votes which are rejected, which could be perfectly valid, decreases any margin of error and is statistically significant.
Honestly, the need for recounts would be moot if we had good electronic voting machines that were done right.
The whole point of the manual recount is that we go through every ballot and triple-check them so that in the end we can come out and say "this is the most accurate count we can come up with." It would not be fair to say "well this is also within the MoE for humans so we'll go with the original" because the recount is supposed to be more accurate.
Except the point of the hand recount being within the human MoE is that it is effectively a tie. The result isn't that A won, the result is that A and B are tied. That being the case, why is it inherently more fair to go with the new result? We have an inaccurate count that says A won, and an accurate count that says it's a tie. I can see an argument for going either way, honestly, but I like view the recount as a means of determining whether or not to overturn the original result.
It's like in football when they have a coach's challenge. The original ruling stands unless there is clear evidence that the ruling was wrong. The analogy would be having the refs signal a touchdown, the opposing coach challenging it, and the refs looking at the video and seeing how there might be some reason to believe that perhaps the guy's foot touched the line before he crossed the plane. You don't overrule the touchdown because your more careful and accurate assessment shows that there might have been a mistake. You stick with the original call.
Because the margin of error for a hand recount is much smaller than the margin of error on the original count. It's as simple as that. Why would you choose to go with the less accurate measure when you've got a better one sitting right there? There could easily be an interesting situation where it collapses towards the center and the probability distribution on either side is exactly the same as it was for the original, but we're getting into more of math riddles at that point.
Man, if both Alaska and Minnesota get Dem Senators, the scene is going to be wild down here in GA for the runoff.
Also, anyone comment on how the very notion of the hand recount changing the result probably implies that Dems are less likely to be able to figure out a scantron?
Man, if both Alaska and Minnesota get Dem Senators, the scene is going to be wild down here in GA for the runoff.
Also, anyone comment on how the very notion of the hand recount changing the result probably implies that Dems are less likely to be able to figure out a scantron?
Or the much-more-likely scenario that low-income neighborhoods tend to get shittier voting machines?
Man, if both Alaska and Minnesota get Dem Senators, the scene is going to be wild down here in GA for the runoff.
Also, anyone comment on how the very notion of the hand recount changing the result probably implies that Dems are less likely to be able to figure out a scantron?
You want to comment on the fact that the most educated areas in the nation consistently vote Democrat and the least educated areas tend to vote Republican?
Man, if both Alaska and Minnesota get Dem Senators, the scene is going to be wild down here in GA for the runoff.
Also, anyone comment on how the very notion of the hand recount changing the result probably implies that Dems are less likely to be able to figure out a scantron?
If the argument here is that Democrats are disproportionately stupid, I would respond by arguing that better educated people tend to be Democrats.
Also, anyone comment on how the very notion of the hand recount changing the result probably implies that Dems are less likely to be able to figure out a scantron?
If the past few elections have shown us anything it's that we really should have a federal standard for ballot design. At least for Congressional races, anyway. Provide room for individual states to add on for their own, or they can opt to doing their own thing. Like with highway funds.
Not that Minnesota necessarily has a horribly designed ballot, but just to be sure for all of them.
What we need is a computer screen that says "Touch The Name You Want For Senate/President/Whatever" and then the names of the candidates in big letters with the order of the candidates fucking randomised so they can't even claim bias on that count. It should be the same in every state. There is literally no reason why this shouldn't be the case, the ability to vote accurately is fucking paramount.
What we need is a computer screen that says "Touch The Name You Want For Senate/President/Whatever" and then the names of the candidates in big letters with the order of the candidates fucking randomised so they can't even claim bias on that count. It should be the same in every state. There is literally no reason why this shouldn't be the case, the ability to vote accurately is fucking paramount.
This would be fantastic if those machines fucking worked.
What we need is a computer screen that says "Touch The Name You Want For Senate/President/Whatever" and then the names of the candidates in big letters with the order of the candidates fucking randomised so they can't even claim bias on that count. It should be the same in every state. There is literally no reason why this shouldn't be the case, the ability to vote accurately is fucking paramount.
and NOT TOUCHSCREEN. that way, you dont have to fucking set it or whatever they do. Just like an ATM machine, buttons down the sides. I dont understand how this is difficult at all.
What we need is a computer screen that says "Touch The Name You Want For Senate/President/Whatever" and then the names of the candidates in big letters with the order of the candidates fucking randomised so they can't even claim bias on that count. It should be the same in every state. There is literally no reason why this shouldn't be the case, the ability to vote accurately is fucking paramount.
I have never understood why we don't have standardized ballots.
There's no downside, and it would make our elections more like actual real-people elections instead of throwing darts at a board.
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Yes, I mean human error, and yes, it's quantifiable. I've seen estimates of between 0.05%-0.1%. Taking the low end just to be safe, on a sample of 100,000 votes, you wouldn't overturn the result on a margin of victory of less than 50 votes. And so on.
He didn't kill Wellstone, and he may not have danced over his corpse, but he did absolutely exploit his passing and the events that followed to win the seat. Following Wellstone's death there was a large service held for his friends and former colleagues, both as a tribute to Wellstone and as a way for the Minnesota Democratic Party to have some closure. At this service there were a number of teary, powerful speeches given by his friends talking about Wellstone, with a general sentiment of "win it for Paul" behind most of them. Given that Wellstone himself was well known for being by far the most progressive member of the Senate and an uncompromising idealist, these people also made reference to the passion he had for his work in that regard. His autobiography was called "Conscience of a Liberal" for Christ's sake.
Two very important people were at this event. One was the governor, Jesse Ventura, who was not doing well at the time. The media had turned on him by then, treating him like an empty blowhard with a gimmick instead of a statesman, and "The Body" had gone from being a political "outsider" and moderate to being a frothing, psychotic embarrassment and a national punchline. By all accounts he had never gotten along with Wellstone. At the rally he repeatedly made a spectacle for himself, sighing loudly or grumbling over speakers and generally acting like a fucking child. At one point he actually stormed out of the service, angrily telling everybody within earshot how it was all a sham and how the Democrats had turned it into a "political rally" instead of a memorial service, that it as all a cold and cynical attempt to rally the troops instead of remembering Paul. The speech he walked out on? Rick Kahn, Wellstone's best friend who by all accounts was sobbing openly while giving an anecdote about how much Paul loved his family, and how proud they were of the work he did.
When they heard about Ventura's antics, the national Republicans jumped all over it. They screamed to the rafters that it was all a disgusting circus, that the Democrats were exploiting Wellstone's death to win an election, that it was all an attempt to raise campaign funds for that dirty liberal Walter Mondale who by the way wanted to raise taxes before Reagan saved us all from a fate worse than death. There were talking heads on every news channel trumpeting this line and backing Ventura (who loved the attention) and insisted that he was the only principled man in the room when by all accounts he was a petulant, disrespectful shit. The campaign had nothing to do with Coleman or Mondale and their policies, nothing to do with Minnesota, and everything to do with the Republicans running one of the dirtiest campaigns in recent memory. This was the same election, remember, when Max Cleland was beaten in Georgia by ads comparing him to Saddam Hussein and calling him a bin Laden sympathizer.
So, that's how Coleman won. He let the worst of the RNC tar a respectable man (Mondale) while hiding behind the corpse of his predecessor. And the other Important Person in the room during that rally?
Al Franken, who had been a friend and supporter of Wellstone. The events of that rally and what followed prompted him to write Lying Liars and start Air America, because in his mind it was no longer about being funny, it was about being angry. So if he has been personally acrimonious and quick to anger during this race, remember why. It's personal for him. He's trying to win it for Paul. You may not agree with him, and it's perfectly reasonable to have doubts about a man who looks at his campaign as a way to avenge a fallen friend, but don't for one fucking minute think that it's because he's just a naked opportunist, or that Coleman isn't 10,000 times worse.
We have kind of a lot of objective evidence that Bush-style Republicans are demonstrably terrible at the business of governing. Norm Coleman is a Bush sycophant who in the days before the election had a potential corruption case revealed around him.
Edit! He went from chair of Wellstone's 1996 campaign and a staunch Democrat to a Bush Republican because the state party apparatus didn't like him and he wanted to run for higher office and that would be easier to do as a Republican and so flipped most of his positions (except choice, he's always been against that) to fall in line.
If I have to choose between two people who are approximately equal douchebags, but one will vote for my agenda and one won't, I'm going to go with the guy on my team.
In addition, 30 seconds of looking on wikipedia shows me that he opposes my views on Iraq, gay marriage, abortion, drilling in ANWR, marijuana legalization, and Social Security. Franken may not be a great candidate, but he's more in line with my views on these issues, and having an additional Democrat in the Senate means that the party's platform as a whole is much more likely to produce actual results.
As best I can tell, Franken is no better or worse than Coleman. However, Franken in office will put an extra Dem in the senate, which will make it that much easier for the Dems to enact their legislation. Given that the Pubs in congress, in concert with the Bush administration, have been the source of much of the problems our nation is currently in, and given that their proposed solutions suck, and given the severity of our current problems, it is reasonable to want to make it as easy as possible for an Obama administration to push through it's agenda without fear of knee-jerk Republican stonewalling.
Once we get the nation off life-support, we can worry about getting someone in the senate who's not a complete asshat.
Gimme a link, I want to see how someone came up with that number. It just doesn't seem possible without knowing the perfect, exact numbers compared to the reported ones.
I don't have a link handy, though you're free to google it if you wish. IIRC, the methodology was based on comparing the results of successive hand-counts for various elections. If the hand-count tallies vary, well, then there must've been some human error.
I distinctly remember hearing in the news about some election (Governor of somewhere? Mayor of somewhere? Don't remember) being decided by a game of five-card stud after the vote recount came up with an exact tie.
But I don't have a link, so this might be some bullshit I'm remembering wrong.
Not true. The point of recounts in most states is that they replace the fast, typically mechanical method of counting ballots with a slower, more accurate method - typically a hand count. The new result is more accurate, and therefore should be preferred over the old one.
In the case of Minnesota, they use optical scanning technology - fill in the bubble with a pencil and the machine counts it. But Minnesota state law says that if the voter's intent is clear, the vote must be counted, regardless of whether it is countable by the machine. So if a voter puts a checkmark or an X in the bubble, rather than filling it in, the machine will miss it but a hand recount will count it.
Do you really think Al Franken is the only "angry nutjob" on the liberal side? Really?
Except that in this case we know the first result was definitely not correct - one of the reasons the margin has closed before the recount even begins is that some precincts misreported numbers - 270 votes as 27 for example.
The whole point of the manual recount is that we go through every ballot and triple-check them so that in the end we can come out and say "this is the most accurate count we can come up with." It would not be fair to say "well this is also within the MoE for humans so we'll go with the original" because the recount is supposed to be more accurate.
I want to punch you in the junk while yelling Tu Quoque! the whole time.
There was a mayoral race decided by a coin flip on the 5th. Both guys were write-ins and neither wanted the job, apparently. :P
In the Senate? He'd be the only blue seat with that level of crazy, yes. Biden was the liberal Big Chief Blowhard, but he's not in the Senate anymore, and he was still extremely qualified and well-respected.
The House is chock-full of lunatics on both sides, but it's the House. It's supposed to be run by the inmates.
Except the point of the hand recount being within the human MoE is that it is effectively a tie. The result isn't that A won, the result is that A and B are tied. That being the case, why is it inherently more fair to go with the new result? We have an inaccurate count that says A won, and an accurate count that says it's a tie. I can see an argument for going either way, honestly, but I like view the recount as a means of determining whether or not to overturn the original result.
It's like in football when they have a coach's challenge. The original ruling stands unless there is clear evidence that the ruling was wrong. The analogy would be having the refs signal a touchdown, the opposing coach challenging it, and the refs looking at the video and seeing how there might be some reason to believe that perhaps the guy's foot touched the line before he crossed the plane. You don't overrule the touchdown because your more careful and accurate assessment shows that there might have been a mistake. You stick with the original call.
And isn't it just true that manual recounts are more accurate? I was under the impression that they were, simply stemming from computer errors, or mismarked ballots, etc.
Like Geckahn said.
You mean like people sneaking in a 3H pencil rather than an HB (#2) to fill in the bubble for Democratic/Republican precincts?
:P
If that's the case then the right thing to do would be a special runoff like Georgia is having, but Minnesota doesn't do that.
Honestly I think that any election within the 0.5% MOE should go to a special runoff regardless of the circumstances or level of the race, but because we let every state make their own stupid laws we always end up with bullshit like this.
I don't believe that Minnesota has provisional ballots, because you can register day-of by giving an oath to an election judge at the polling place even if your vote is challenged. There are undervotes, however, and Minnesota has very liberal regulations WRT interpreting "voter intent." If a ballot is marked inelligible due to an undervote (as about 6,000-7,000 were IIRC) then they will look at those ballots at the time of the recount to check if there is a way to determine who the vote was intended for. Based on Nate Silver's math this could result in around 206 more votes for Franken, which hilariously enough is the exact difference between them at the moment.
You're actually not, Jeffe. The fact that you are reviewing votes which are rejected, which could be perfectly valid, decreases any margin of error and is statistically significant.
Honestly, the need for recounts would be moot if we had good electronic voting machines that were done right.
Because the margin of error for a hand recount is much smaller than the margin of error on the original count. It's as simple as that. Why would you choose to go with the less accurate measure when you've got a better one sitting right there? There could easily be an interesting situation where it collapses towards the center and the probability distribution on either side is exactly the same as it was for the original, but we're getting into more of math riddles at that point.
Also, anyone comment on how the very notion of the hand recount changing the result probably implies that Dems are less likely to be able to figure out a scantron?
Or the much-more-likely scenario that low-income neighborhoods tend to get shittier voting machines?
You want to comment on the fact that the most educated areas in the nation consistently vote Democrat and the least educated areas tend to vote Republican?
If the argument here is that Democrats are disproportionately stupid, I would respond by arguing that better educated people tend to be Democrats.
If the past few elections have shown us anything it's that we really should have a federal standard for ballot design. At least for Congressional races, anyway. Provide room for individual states to add on for their own, or they can opt to doing their own thing. Like with highway funds.
Not that Minnesota necessarily has a horribly designed ballot, but just to be sure for all of them.
Books turn people into communists
This would be fantastic if those machines fucking worked.
It's certainly a useful proxy. If you're a true believer in the free market, we could go with wealthier people, too. They also tend to vote Democrat.
and NOT TOUCHSCREEN. that way, you dont have to fucking set it or whatever they do. Just like an ATM machine, buttons down the sides. I dont understand how this is difficult at all.
There's no downside, and it would make our elections more like actual real-people elections instead of throwing darts at a board.
It's more like the least realistic and the most likely to vote for a candidate based on the coolness of their haircut