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Minnesota Madness Update

By Philip Klein on 12.16.08 @ 12:01PM

The state Canvassing Board will begin to review challenged ballots today in the Minnesota Senate race. All along, I've been cautioning that Norm Coleman's often cited 192-vote lead may have been overstated, because he challenged more ballots than Franken. Given that most of these challenges have been ruled on by local election officials once, I anticipate the Board will throw out an overwhelming majority of challenges and because Coleman has made more challenges, he's likely to lose more of them, and Franken is likely to make gains. In recent days, the Associated Press and the Star Tribune have released the results of their reviews, which anticipate Coleman's lead being erased once the Canvassing Board rules on the challenged ballots (the Star Tribune analysis was done by its readers, and thus especially susceptible to partisan manipulation). Obviously, there will be a lot more twists and turns and legal moves down the road, and it's hard to really predict how this will all turn out, but it now seems that Franken has a very plausible path to victory once you factor in the challenged ballots, and potential gains from rejected absentee ballots.