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Worse for the poor folks from Minnesota, it was a recount between Al Franken - a liberal and an ex-Saturday Night Live funny man, and Norm Coleman - a first term Republican who was swept into power in 2002 in a bizarre mix of George W. Bush post-9/11 love and the unexpected death of his opponent (no funny business here it was just an odd convergence of happenstance).
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So there have been counts and recounts and lawsuits and lawsuits and still no Senator sitting to represent Minnesota.
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The problem, honestly. It was a tie. Out of some 6 million votes, the winning margin is less than 300 in either case. Here is the problem. That is a like 0.005% difference. It is a statistical error of tiny proportions. Any human count or machine count is going to be less that 99.995% accurate.
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But Minnesota (like most states) doesn't have a "what do we do in a statistical tie" rule. It may or may not have a "what do we do in case of a tie", but with 6 million+ votes, you will have a different outcome every time, and almost never a tie.
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So the race, like all too many things in America, is reduced to a set of lawsuits that will cost the state money and deliver no better answer than flipping a coin.
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sigh
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BUT if you want a roll on the floor hilarious update, then watch the "Red State Update" below. I particularly like the question, "We can block a Senator from coming in? Can we block them all?" and his explanation of why Caroline Kennedy is a fine pick for Senator "and Number two: She's a Kennedy and she ain't never raped nobody, OD'ed or skidded on the ice and killed someone, hell that's qualification in my book..."
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