Minnesota Recount Update

With only 16,000 of 79,000 ballots left to recount at the start of the day, Stearns County Auditor-Treasurer Randy Schreifels said he was pretty confident things would be wrapped up by the end of today.

But as of 10 a.m., there already had been seven ballots challenged where voter intent was very clear, he said in a news release.

Schreifels called the challenges "frivolous" in the news release and said most of them came from one challenger affiliated with Democrat Al Franken's campaign.

One ballot was challenged because the oval wasn't completely blackened, and another because there was a small mark elsewhere on the ballot that was not near the U.S. Senate race, Schreifels said.

While this seems outrageous on the face of it (and it is) remember, that this is a strategy. Every vote challenged is one less vote on the opponents pile. While it's Franken here, if Coleman was behind he would likely also be pursuing a "challenge everything strategy". But ultimately it shouldn't make a difference. The more one side is challenging, the more probable it is that that side has the weaker position in the recount battle. The challenges will eventually be resolved by an impartial panel made up of judges and officials.

According to the Strib, Coleman is challenging 1600 ballots and Franken about 1500. If those were all resolved equally to the opponent, there wouldn't be much change, but the big question is whether Coleman's challenges are more substantive than Franken's. That I do not know. But Nate Silver is noting that the challenging is happening from both camps.

There was a lot of talk about thousands of undervotes for Franken, from Nate Silver and others, but so far those haven't materialized. It's still going to be a squeaker, but Franken has to be disheartened at the lack of progress he's making as of today.