Franken recount--more than 500 challenged ballots viewable on line

[wellstone dem]

for those as obsessed with me. You can view the ballot, and cast your own vote!

http://senaterecount.startribune.com/

very cool

my favorite so far is the person who, in the presidential race,voted for everyone except McCain and Barr. (also voted for Franken and was challenged by coleman)

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Sounds like that person needs an Approval ballot. :^) I think that would be kinda cool, really.

[wellstone dem]

2. My new favorite is the Coleman voter who in the presidential

race wrote in "God help us."

[Doughboy71]

3. Someone wrote in....

Lizard People for President, Senate, and a few others on their ballot in MN. The Coleman challenged the ballot, not because they couldn't determine the voter intent, they voted for Obama and Franken, but because they wrote Lizard People on the line and correctly voted for Franken but did not fill in the circle for the write in vote.

[camera obscura]

17. There was an interview with that guy on MPR... he didn't say if he meant to vote for Franken or not!

Frustrating.

[wellstone dem]

4. OK, I want to know how someone could vote for Franken, for Obama

and then vote for Michelle Bachmann??? Makes no sense.

[wellstone dem]

6. Another vote for everyone except McCain

interesting to see the different ways people vote.

[bleever]

5. I just went through the first 150 ballots.

Unfortunately, there's no way of knowing how representative a sample this is.

However, if I extrapolate my own results, I get Franken picking up about 270 votes when the challenges are sorted.

Your mileage will certainly vary.

[dems_rightnow]

10. I looked thru some

and was sort of disgusted with both sides. Some were legitimate questions, others were things like having not stayed fully in the circle. There's just a ton of BS challenges in the mix.

[calmblueocean]

7. Argh. After judging 100 votes, Coleman leads by 5. There's some wiggle room, but not much.

I voted trying to give Coleman the benefit of the doubt, so if I came up with a big number for Franken, I'd feel it was solid.

What surprised me was that it stayed close the whole way through, and there weren't many ballots I genuinely had a hard time deciding honestly. I'd really expected a lot more Franken votes. And who knows? 100 votes isn't much compared to 10,000+ outstanding, but I won't deny, I'm feeling a little bummed by the early numbers.

[wellstone dem]

11. That's how I felt

My only consolation is that a lot of the one's I looked at were Meeker County, where there was a report of a Franken challenger who wasn't exercising the best judgement. So maybe the first ballots aren't reflective of the whole bunch of challenges.

[sohndrsmith]

8. great post. Thank you.

K & R

[zeos3]

9. Thanks for posting

[bleever]

12. Kick.

[rvablue]

13. To be fair, I think some of the ballots that Franken is challenging are just as lame as the ones

that Coleman is challenging.

I'm so sick of this ballot challenging crap...especially when it is obvious, whether it be either candidate, that someone has voted for an individual and simply failed to completely fill in the little bubble.

It makes me mad period.....

[wellstone dem]

14. i agree

and the stray marks too

[wellstone dem]

15. kick

[csziggy]

16. Woodbury doesn't have bubbles to fill in so voters were marking any way they could!