Norm Coleman's lawyers tried to stop the counting of hundreds of wrongly rejected absentee ballots and now we know they had good reason: those ballots are breaking for Al Franken who is winning nearly 60 percent of them. With another 15 percent going to "other" that doesn't leave many for Coleman.
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The Uptake has a live feed where the votes are now being counted and you can also check their live updated spreadsheet here. But as of right now:
Franken: 270
Coleman: 160
Other/No vote: 79
So to win, Coleman must get a court to throw out these newly counted ballots and then trim another 50 votes off Franken's total somehow. Good luck with that Norm.
Alan Stuart Franken (born May 21, 1951) is the Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate in the 2008 US Senate race in Minnesota, an Emmy Award–winning American comedian, writer, liberal political commentator, and politician. He first became famous as a writer and a performer for Saturday Night Live, eventually writing and appearing in several movies. Since then, Franken has become more known for his political commentary, writing numerous best-selling books, and being the talk-radio host of his own nationally syndicated radio show on Air America Radio.
On February 14, 2007, Franken announced his candidacy for the 2008 United States Senate election in Minnesota as a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, was endorsed by that party on June 7, 2008, and won the nomination in its primary on September 9, 2008.[1][2] On November 18, the Minnesota state canvassing board certified results of the election with Franken trailing Senator Norm Coleman by 215 votes, or less than 0.0075 percent of the over 2.8 million votes cast.[3][4] Under Minnesota state law, an automatic recount was mandated, because the official margin was less than one-half of one percent of the total votes cast. The recount began November 19.[4]
As of January 3, 2009, Franken had unofficially taken the lead by 225 votes.[5] The canvassing board confirmed Franken's 225 vote lead. Later that day, the Minnesota Secretary of State's office announced it would certify Al Franken as the winner of the 2008 election for the United States Senate on January 5, 2009, absent any rulings from the Minnesota State Supreme Court.[6] The results will then likely be subject to challenge by the Coleman campaign.[7]
