The Canvassing Board overseeing the vote recount for MinnesotaÂ’s tightly contested U.S. Senate race isnÂ’t quite done examining disputed ballots, but the board issued a projection Saturday night that Al Franken will pick up 270 votes when it finishes. Currently the board is determining voter intent in disputed ballots. If the projection proves correct, Franken will beat incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman by 78 votes.Vote totals have changed a lot since Nov. 4, when Coleman led Franken by 725 votes. Correcting typos cut ColemanÂ’s margin to 215, and a recount by all the counties reduced it further to 192. Yet, the additional 270 votes picked up by Franken from the Canvassing BoardÂ’s decisions have been among the most controversial.
The vote pickup has occurred through two actions by the board — divining voter intent and determining what votes should be counted. While decisions to include missing or overlooked ballots have gotten the most attention, the process of determining intent has also been important in determining the outcome here.
The Canvassing Board faces a difficult task in divining voter intentions. It is very difficult to determine how a voter meant to vote simply by looking at what might be stray marks on the ballot. And whatever rules are adopted must be consistently used in evaluating all ballots.
Some board decisions on votes are exceedingly difficult to understand, and even watching the television coverage of their decisions this last week provided little additional insight. Here is an example where the Minnesota Canvassing Board claims the vote is clearly for Franken. Voters are supposed to fill in the small oval next to a candidateÂ’s name to vote for that candidate. The board explains its decision as there being "No Dup" (presumably meaning that there was no duplicate ballot), but it is not clear how that would switch what looks like an obvious Coleman vote to a Franken vote.
