The folks at fivethirtyeight.com are doing a bang up job of doing the math with some informed and fairly objective analysis. They have some fascinating analysis about the upcoming Franken-Coleman Minnesota Senate vote recount.
Determining the winner of a vote recount depends on three primary factors:
- the original margin (221 for Coleman),
- the fraction of total votes that weren’t originally counted but will be counted in a hand recount (what they call Correctable Error Rate), and
- the distribution of newly counted votes
If the distribution of newly counted votes is 50/50, Coleman wins, as Franken can’t gain any ground. The higher the fraction of previously uncounted votes are, the more potential there is for Franken to make up new ground.
At this point, a reasonable range of estimates of these parameters allows us to assess the odds.
Votes don’t get counted because they’re overvoted (the machine decides a ballot selected two candidates) or undervoted (the machine decides a ballot did not select any candidates.) Overvotes are almost always unintentional; undervotes are usually intentional (leave an X instead of filling in the oval, etc.) Probably, less than one percent of votes will be reclassified from over- or under-voted to a definite vote during the hand recount; about 15% of those will go to Dean Barkley. This by itself would not be enough for Franken to make up the 221-vote difference. But together with the other factor, the distribution of new votes, Franken could come out ahead.
Why? Because undervotes and overvotes occur predominantly among the elderly, low-income and low-education voters, and first-time voters. (The article also mentions minority voters… I think this part of the reasoning applies only to those for whom English isn’t their primary language.) In this election, the elderly vote is split, but the youth, first-time, and “minority” vote have gone to Franken.
Now the author can crunch some numbers. The highlights:
- If the uncounted fraction of votes that will be counted is 0.90% (25,000 votes), and Franken takes 50.50% of those votes, the odds are even that Franken will win.
- If the uncounted fraction of votes that will be counted is 0.50% (about 13,900), and Franken takes 51% of those votes, then Franken has a 57% chance of winning.
- If Franken captures 53% of the new votes, then the number of new votes counted has to be less than 0.25% (less than 7,000 votes) for Coleman to have a chance.
So, if you’re for Coleman, you want to diminish the number of new votes, and hope that they count more of the middle- and upeer-class. If you’re a Franken supporter, you want lots and lots of new votes, on the theory that the newly-counted votes represent the “vulnerable vote.”
If you’re a Barkley supporter, you’ll need a time machine set to 4 November 2002.
None of this, of course, takes into account any legal wrangling that may ensue. How a municipality can allow their voting booth to put an inaccurate date and time stamp on a ballot is beyond my comprehension.
No matter what, stay tuned to www.fivethirtyeight.com for some reasonably objective analysis.
As an independent voter, I really did look forward to a spirited election. The Democrats put forward an inspiring but young leader. The Republicans sent a long-serving, well-respected hero.
Both candidates are mavericks within their own party. Remember when Hilary was all but inevitable? When Rudy Giuliani was nearly a lock? Obama had to put forward a Herculean effort to overcome Hilary, all the time knowing that Hilary was handing the Republican nominee weapon after rhetorical weapon. McCain lacked the full backing of the Republican party’s conservative base, but force of personality and strength of character saw him through.
Each side had strategic points in their favor. Obama could link McCain to Bush 43, and tout his own anti-Iraq war stance. McCain has much more experience, has survived an almost unimaginable personal trauma in sacrifice to his country, and has a fire in his belly.
The popular opinion is that Obama was able to hit McCain early on with Iraq, and again near the end of the campaign, strike again with the recession (and yes, we’re calling it what it is.) Obama used his oratory power, social media, and massive grassroots organization to raise money and deliver his message to independent voters like myself. How could McCain stand up to such an onslaught?
All John McCain needed to do was lead.
Instead, he attacked. He took reflexive, reactionary positions against a calm and collected opponent. If John McCain had summoned the personal courage to lead, instead of being led by the traditional tactics to attack, smear, distort, yesterday’s vote could have gone differently. The popular vote went 53%-46%. Look at all the small cracks that widened into a 7-point gap:
- Permitting stump speeches that inspired hateful cries like “Terrorist!” or (argh) “Kill him!”.
- Letting your supporters get away with such language until you absolutely had to rein them in. If you and your running mate had cut them off the first time, you’d have been more credible on election day.
- Nominating a VP candidate that would be a disaster if made President today. Sarah Palin may be the future of the party (and part of me can’t wait for the Hilary/Palin showdown in ‘16), but she’s not it today. Katie Couric demonstrated this conclusively.
- McCain’s own rhetoric. For example, “If only Obama would stop lecturing us for a minute,” and “Obama is running to be redistributionist-in-chief.” Let’s set aside the fact that Americans want to hear lectures from their candidates, as such information forms the basis of an opinion on whom to vote for. Let’s also forget for a second that redistributing wealth is one of the primary functions of government, regardless of who occupies the Oval Office. McCain should have argued on the strength of his own ideas. What steps would you take to resolve the economic crisis? Why do you think Obama’s ideas are bad for the country? What is bad about the way Obama would redistribute wealth? In short, McCain’s ideas were lost behind his reflexive, “I’m tough” reactions.
I believe that John McCain did a lot of listening to Republican campaign experts about how to win an election, and forgot all the things that made him a popular politician. If he had taken personal ownership of the tone and themes of his campaign, and built his platform on his ideas and not on his reactions, he might be the President-Elect today.
Only at the end, during his concession speech, did he exhibit the personal strength he needed all along, when he held himself accountable for his loss.
When leaders are genuine, true to their own moral compass, and reject notions of “how it’s always done”, they give themselves a leg up that’s hard to argue with.