I went through the first 2702 ballots available from Minnesota Public Radio and found something very interesting.
In Minneapolis 112 ballots for Franken are being challenged because of duplication errors compared to only 12 Coleman ballots. These are ballots that may have been mishandled by election workers.
I've included lots of images and some analysis below.
Al Franken has a great chance of making up the 192 vote differential the Minneapolis Star Tribune is reporting, but Hennepin County's decision to stop looking for the 133 ballots they have been searching for during the last week will make the effort a lot harder.
Since I don't have a life and love doing repetitive tasks I have examined and sorted the first 2702 ballots available through Minnesota public radio.
I tried my best to follow the guidelines for determining voter intent provided by the Minnesota Secretary of State.
Most of the challenges were frivolous and my analysis showed 2009 of the 2686 would be dismissed (1010 Coleman challenges split 912 Franken votes and 98 overvotes and 999 Franken Challenges split 862 Coleman Votes and 137 overvotes. That is a 50 vote swing in Franken's favor.
Coleman will lose this challenge.
Another excellent challenge from the Coleman camp.
This is closer but Franken loses since there is a good vote for Coleman.
This is also a loss since it's the only mark for Senate and is consistent with other marks on the ballot.
Only 65 of the wins resulted in votes for the candidate. Those split 13 for Coleman and 52 for Franken.
Some wins are hard to come by but a good lawyer will argue this is a check mark for Franken.
Some voters show their intent differently.
35 of the wins cost resulted in overvotes, undervotes, or third party votes. 15 of these cost Coleman votes while only 9 kept Franken from getting any votes.
The judge at the table may have a bias.
333 challenges were won because of voter actions. Franken lost 173 votes and Coleman lost 160 due to stuff voters wrote on the ballots (ht: DemocraticLuntz).
The final 235 were challenged for procedural errors. Franken lost 149 votes due to alleged errors in duplicating ballots compared to only 40 for Coleman. Minneapolis accounted for 112 of the alleged duplication errors and that may cost Franken enough votes to make the difference. They are too scattered to provide all the links, you just have to trust me.
Those ballots will make the difference, not the Lizard People, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.