More on Minnesota Recount

If you are interested in looking at the challenged ballots, the Minneapolis Star Tribune has provided a sample of 599 ballots here. I have gone through 100 of them and I would guess that it would be lucky if 10 percent involve really difficult calls. With 5,623 challenged ballots (about equally divided between Coleman and Franken), a 10 percent rate means 562 ballots. Suppose that Coleman losses all his challenges and Franken wins all his and that the 562 are equally divided between the two sides, that would appear to be a pick up of 281 votes for Franken. Right now Coleman is up by 282 votes.

UPDATE: The Star Tribune makes a similar point in their Sunday paper:

The Star Tribune analysis showed that Franken could win the election by 26 votes by prevailing on 7 percent of his challenges of Coleman votes, provided that Coleman won none of his challenges of Franken votes.

Franken would have to climb a higher hill if Coleman were to win some of his challenges. If the incumbent won as few as 5 percent of his challenges of Franken votes, Franken would need to win more than 11 percent of his. . . .