Can we hold back on the posturing and just get them counted?

Pat Kessler of WCCO television has noted that Norm Coleman gained more over Walter Mondale when the final numbers came in six years ago than Al Franken has gained on Norm this year, but nobody really noticed or cared. But this kind of difference is close enough that it makes Norm uneasy and causes him and his attorneys to carp daily and keeps Franken’s hopes alive for a while. I do not doubt that if the numbers were working the other way around that Franken would posture similarly.

We may find votes which did not register because people did not mark ballots correctly. Our election laws do not require that ballots be marked for the convenience of optical scanner, their inventors, or users. They require that the best effort be made to determine the voter’s intention.

Properly counting these votes may produce some interesting results in a race this close, but the law neither requires that the voter be smart enough to follow instructions nor that they be conformist enough to fill out the ovals. [Not everybody did well at coloring within the lines when a child.]

And it may be that there may be enough of these ballots to make a difference. Democracy is not always pretty.