Oh well here is a shocker: Nobody in California had the time, inclination, or detailed budgetary expertise to make a good ruling on the many ballot measures up for approval yesterday, so instead they voted “no” on everything except a legislative salary freeze and then they went to In-n-Out Burger for a double double. MORE »

The Al Franken team announced today that under its special recount tracking methodology, Franken’s ahead by 22 votes over that cock Norm Coleman! The maths here seem rather terrible: “The Franken camp’s methodology involves taking down the opinions of the local election officials regarding the challenged ballots, and assuming that all the challenges will result in those local officials being upheld by the state canvassing board.” Nah, they just read Nate Silver’s projection and shaved off a few votes, to make it look authentic. [TPM Election Central]

Have you all been following this Franken-Coleman senatorial recount drudgery on the FiveThirtyEight? Good for you! Certain Wonkette editors have resisted wading into those treacherous waters, for they are abrim with regression analyses & dragonnes & awful flashbacks to Florida of 2000. But here is a funny non-maths-related theory about the soul-sucking recount process in Minnesota, and one novel Republican explanation for why the venerated radio host Al Franken will win! MORE »

Oh here is a fun game! Check out these actual disputed voter ballots from Minnesota, and look at what laughable excuses the Coleman and Franken campaigns have for arguing “voter intent” in one direction or the other. Minnesota Public Radio, you have rendered a valuable time-wasting service unto the nation. [MPR via First Read]

Remember how convicted criminal-senator Ted Stevens of Alaska finagled his way into an election night lead despite every poll showing him down by 4,750%, due to those seven (7) crimes? Well the Alaska elections board has found a few hidden ballots that might change the score. But not many ballots, just THIRTY PERCENT OF THEM. You know, thirty percent, as in “one-third.” Countin’ starts tomorrow at high noon or some other time of the day. [ADN, Brad Blog]

Every four years, a mysterious combination of negligence, incompetence, fraud, and criminality conspire to make a single state responsible for getting some doofus into the White House. In 2000, Florida took the honor; in 2004, it was Ohio. And every four years, Hendrik Hertzberg writes angry editorials about how the whole electoral college should be bombed from space as a Republican takes office yet again. So which state will we be able to blame when Sarah Palin is hastily sworn in as America’s 45th president after John McCain expires from gout and agues in the spring of 2009? MORE »

At a voting precinct in Chicago yesterday, a vote-scanning machine rejected 20 paper ballots that voters had used “magic” invisible ink pens to fill out. Now don’t go shouting DIEBOLD just yet — these ballots were rejected because there is no such thing as a magic invisible ink pen to be used on paper ballots. The pen was just a stylus for touch-screen voting machines, and everyone in that precinct is a retard. MORE »

Nobody can believe how many voters are actually trying to vote, despite today’s primary being possibly the most insanely hyped primary election in the entire human history of elections, going back to Ancient Greece or wherever. According to stunned sources, the same New Hampshire authorities who made this nice wheelchair-pizza logo apparently forgot to print up enough ballots for the, uh, voters. There is a siren on Drudge, people! [ABC News]