# How's Al Franken's Senate bid going? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 12, 2008, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239 "2008-02-12T01:57:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 45
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/881 "2009-04-25T14:45:54Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Is Coleman, so often called a RINO, really that loyal of a partisan? There’s a lot of rancor between Coleman and the Democrats, starting way back even before he left the party. As such, I think it’s pretty hard for them to admit he might be doing something on principal, instead they want to demonize him. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/882 "2009-04-25T15:02:11Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > There’s a lot of rancor between Coleman and the Democrats, starting way back even before he left the party. As such, I think it’s pretty hard for them to admit he might be doing something on principal, instead they want to demonize him. Yes, because a completely transparent recount process, a PAINFULLY precise election contest and a unanimous Election Contest Court decision is SO demonizing of Norm. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/883 "2009-04-25T15:24:39Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > …instead they want to demonize him. It’s hard not to demonize somebody when you observe what a hypocrite he is. In Franken’s place, he does not follow his own advice to let the result stand so the healing process can begin. He’s clearly the puppet of the GOP at this point, the Party of No in (in)action. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/884 "2009-04-25T16:38:35Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Would someone kindly sum up the basics of what’s going on at this point? What happens if Coleman wins in June – he gets the seat? Another recount? Franklin starts a new appeals process (at what, the Federal level)? > > If Colman loses, then what? Franklin takes the cake? Coleman appeals to the Feds? If Coleman loses, Franken takes the seat. Coleman can try to appeal to the US Supreme Court but it’s a near certainty that they won’t even hear the case. Coleman “winning” could come two ways. They could hold a whole new election or they can count the extra 3000 or so absentee votes that he wants counted and the winner of the resulting new total vote count gets the seat. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/885 "2009-04-25T17:02:35Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > There’s a lot of rancor between Coleman and the Democrats, starting way back even before he left the party. As such, I think it’s pretty hard for them to admit he might be doing something on principal, instead they want to demonize him. Were this situation reversed, and Franken was being obstructive and litigous in the manner Coleman is, I guarantee you all but the party-uber-alles Democrats would be telling Franken to shut up and go away already. Especially on this board, there’s a number of people who didn’t like Franken running in the first place. However, Coleman’s lost even more favor because of the way he’s drawing this whole thing out. I know it’s hard to accept, but it really is Coleman’s actions and not his party that are drawing most of the ire. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/886 "2009-04-25T18:50:58Z")
> [@Beadalin](#): > > The oral arguments will be heard June 1, and will take less than a day. Fortunately (I think) the oral arguments carry less weight than the briefs, so the judge’s opinions will likely be already formed and possibly written by the time the oral arguments are heard. Um, not likely. The Minnesota Supreme Court will bend over backward to make sure that all proper processes and appearances are kept. While it is true that they will have some good idea of how they feel on the appeal at the time of oral argument, you won’t see a decision handed down until sometime after the orals, likely at least a week, probably longer. Really, at this point, a week or two matters essentially very little; the damage has already been done. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/887 "2009-04-25T19:12:10Z")
> [@](#): > > As such, I think it’s pretty hard for them to admit he might be doing something on principal, instead they want to demonize him. No, it’s blatantly obvious that he’s acting on principle right now. The problem is that the principle he’s acting on is that the Republican party is more important than the results of democracy, and that it’s therefore better for Minnesota to be denied representation in the Senate than for that representation to be from a member of the party that got voted in fair and square. Standing on principle is not a good thing, when it’s a bad principle. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/888 "2009-04-25T19:13:10Z")
I was summarizing what I heard on Minnesota Public Radio last night, and it’s repeated (sorta) in the article I linked to above. To wit: > [@](#): > > “It’s not clear to me that this appreciably extends the time until a decision. It might be shifting some of that time for opinion writing to the period before the oral argument rather than after,” said Hasen, “because it’s really the briefs, much more than the argument, that are the most important part of the case when you’re up on appeal.” So while I agree that the court will make sure to properly adhere to the process, the written briefs are more important than the oral arguments, and the judges will be writing at least some of their opinions before the oral arguments take place. ---
**Author:** ![ManiacMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b782af/32.png) [@ManiacMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ManiacMan)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/889 "2009-04-27T23:04:55Z")
I don’t get it… Norm won the first time (albeit a narrow margin) so a recount is triggered. Which is fine and dandy. But now Franken “wins” the recount and I can hear the backslapping all the way over here in Michigan…a narrow margin is “ok” now all of the sudden? Now the lawyers are in on the whole stupid mess and the size of this fiasco grows larger and larger by the second. At this point it looks like two siblings squabbling over an empty shopping bag. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2009, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/890 "2009-04-27T23:15:17Z")
> [@ManiacMan](#): > > I don’t get it… > > Norm won the first time (albeit a narrow margin) so a recount is triggered. Which is fine and dandy. But now Franken “wins” the recount and I can hear the backslapping all the way over here in Michigan…a narrow margin is “ok” now all of the sudden? Now the lawyers are in on the whole stupid mess and the size of this fiasco grows larger and larger by the second. > > At this point it looks like two siblings squabbling over an empty shopping bag. Why scare quotes? Norm had a narrow lead before the recount. After the recount, Franken had a narrow lead. Norm followed the legal path to follow in Minnesota for this and filed an Election Complaint. The Election Complaint Court listened to the Coleman lawyers throw out argument after desperate argument, then ruled against them (unanimously). What’s to be confused about? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2009, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/891 "2009-04-27T23:15:57Z")
> [@ManiacMan](#): > > I don’t get it… > > Norm won the first time (albeit a narrow margin) so a recount is triggered. Which is fine and dandy. But now Franken “wins” the recount and I can hear the backslapping all the way over here in Michigan…a narrow margin is “ok” now all of the sudden? Now the lawyers are in on the whole stupid mess and the size of this fiasco grows larger and larger by the second. > > At this point it looks like two siblings squabbling over an empty shopping bag. Coleman did not “win” the first time. There was no “First time.” There has never been a certified “winner.” Coleman had a marginal lead in the count on election night. After all the votes were recounted (as per state law), Franken was in the clear lead. There are no votes left to count, and there was never any problem with a narrow margin. The recount was triggered by state law, not by Al Franken. ALL of the delays and appeals since then have come from Coleman. What are you suggesting that Franken should have done differently at any point in this process? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2009, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/892 "2009-04-27T23:57:04Z")
I think that some people believe that he should have conceded on election night so that Coleman would have won. Or never have run. Or should insist on a redo and refuse to accept such a tainted victory. Anything other than other than actually win an election in a clear and transparent manner according to proper procedures. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/893 "2009-04-28T02:34:16Z")
Isn’t it the case that Coleman was ahead on election night because the absentee ballots hadn’t yet been counted? ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/894 "2009-04-28T02:42:53Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Coleman did not “win” the first time. There was no “First time.” There has never been a certified “winner.” Coleman had a marginal lead in the count on election night. After all the votes were recounted (as per state law), Franken was in the clear lead. There are no votes left to count, and there was never any problem with a narrow margin. The recount was triggered by state law, not by Al Franken. ALL of the delays and appeals since then have come from Coleman. What are you suggesting that Franken should have done differently at any point in this process? I don’t know how many times I’ve had to repeat that over and over in the last couple months. I should have it on a business card and a macro online. ---
**Author:** ![ManiacMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b782af/32.png) [@ManiacMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ManiacMan)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/895 "2009-04-28T02:54:45Z")
Wasn’t he “winning” by over 700 votes, and then after the recount started his lead started to evaporate…mysteriously? Alot of the challenged ballots evaluated by the canvassing board seemed kinda fishy. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/896 "2009-04-28T03:13:15Z")
> [@ManiacMan](#): > > Wasn’t he “winning” by over 700 votes, and then after the recount started his lead started to evaporate…mysteriously? Alot of the challenged ballots evaluated by the canvassing board seemed kinda fishy. Well, I’m convinced. Let’s lynch Franken. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/897 "2009-04-28T03:16:41Z")
> [@ManiacMan](#): > > Wasn’t he “winning” by over 700 votes, and then after the recount started his lead started to evaporate…mysteriously? Alot of the challenged ballots evaluated by the canvassing board seemed kinda fishy. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEitght explained why: [http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/why-ive-been-ignoring-minnesota-recount.html](http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/why-ive-been-ignoring-minnesota-recount.html) > [@](#): > > Why has it been so clear that Franken is bound for victory? Throughout the process, there have been two types of ballots that are in some measure of dispute: > > 1. In-person ballots, which had one or more imperfections that led them to being not counted (or miscounted) on Election Day. > 2. Absentee ballots, which had one more alleged imperfections, and which may or may not have been rejected in error. > > The plurality of each of these types of ballots are likely to have been cast for Al Franken. How come? In the first case, spoiled or imperfect ballots are more likely to have been cast by what I call vulnerable voters: people such as students, lower-income voters, and minority voters who tend to vote less frequently and are therefore more likely to have made a mistake in completing their ballots. These same demographics, however, are also generally more likely to be Democratic voters, and that was especially so this year given Barack Obama’s appeal to some of these constituencies. > > The second group of ballots – the absentee ballots – were also more likely to favor Democrats. This is because, in contrast to years prior when absentee ballots tended to be more Republican, the Democrats made a nationwide push this year for early and absentee voting, particularly in (purported) swing states like Minnesota. Pre-election polls (see here and here) showed Al Franken overperforming among absentee voters, and both the Franken and the Coleman legal teams were operating under the assumption that a plurality of such ballots would in fact be cast for Franken. If more wrongly-rejected absentee ballots have been turning up in blue precincts, that is simply because more absentee ballots period were cast in blue precincts, and the wrongly-rejected absentees constitute some more-or-less random subset of those. (If anything, in fact, the disputed absentee ballots are probably more likely than the nondisputed absentee ballots to have been cast for Franken, because they may be subject to the same “vulnerable voter” principle described above). > > Norm Coleman had a perfectly good chance of winning the election so long as he was arguing that as few of these ballots as possible should have been counted. Once he fell behind after the recount, however, and then fell further behind once some previously-rejected absentee ballots were counted, Coleman began arguing for the inclusion of more, rather than fewer, ballots. This was the correct strategy, in the same way that fouling with 20 seconds to go when down by 7 points late in a basketball game is the correct strategy: if you don’t stop the clock, your chances of winning are precisely zero. If you do stop the clock, however, your chances of winning under these circumstances are nevertheless almost zero, and on average you’ll fall further behind. > > It was predictable, therefore, that when Coleman finally succeeded in getting Minnesota to count some additional absentee ballots yesterday, they turned out to increase Franken’s lead. Nothing fishy, Coleman tried to limit how many of those ballots were added, as soon has he came the loser after the recount, he had little choice but ask for more of those ballots to be added to the count, he ended up losing by more. Now the “basketball” game has the Coleman team losing by “10” points with less than 10 seconds to go and they continue to commit fouls. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/898 "2009-04-28T03:45:20Z")
> [@ManiacMan](#): > > Wasn’t he “winning” by over 700 votes, and then after the recount started his lead started to evaporate…mysteriously? Alot of the challenged ballots evaluated by the canvassing board seemed kinda fishy. Actually, no, not a single word of this is accurate. Coleman’s lead after the initial count was 215. When Norm falsely declared himself the winner on election night (and hilariously said if he was in Franken’s place he would concede), the initial count was still going on. There was nothing “mysterious” about it. That was the initial count after all the votes were in. There was also nothing “fishy” about the recount. Minnesota has one of the most bulletproof and aboveboard systems in the US. Every decision was made in front of Coleman lawyers and on camera. There were just as many Republicans on the canvassing board as democrats, and there’s no reason to believe that ANY of them exercised any undue partisan bias. Both Coleman and Franken asked for some ballots to be counted that were iffy to sy the least. That doesn’t mean that they DID get counted. If you have some evidence that the canvasing board counted any “fishy” ballots, let’s see it. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/899 "2009-04-28T10:57:07Z")
They counted Democratic voting ballots. VERY fishy indeed. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239/900 "2009-04-28T12:54:45Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > If you have some evidence that the canvasing board counted any “fishy” ballots, let’s see it. Preferably in court. Oh, wait… Coleman tried that, and failed to convince the judges. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239.md?page=44) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-al-frankens-senate-bid-going/437239.md?page=46)