Franken Has Big Edge in County Distribution of Absentee Ballots

Al Franken’s 49-vote lead is expected by nearly all analysts to increase after the tabulation of wrongly excluded absentee ballots by the Canvassing Board this weekend. The final, hard data is now in to confirm these suspicions.

Of the 953 ballots sent by the state’s 87 counties to the Board, 513, or 54 percent, come from counties won by Al Franken, with just 440, or 46 percent, from counties carried by Norm Coleman. And that is the good news for the Coleman campaign.

Smart Politics examined the margin of victory by Coleman or Franken in each county from which each outstanding absentee ballot was cast. The results show that the vast majority of ballots coming from Coleman counties (329, or 75 percent) were counties the Senator won by just 10 points or less.

On the flip side, only 13 percent of ballots coming from Franken counties were counties the DFL nominee won by 10 points or less (69 ballots).

Over half of the ballots coming from Franken counties (267, 52 percent) were in counties Franken won by between 11 to 15 points, compared to just 43 ballots in such Coleman counties (10 percent).

Franken also has nearly three times as many ballots waiting to be counted from counties he won by 16 or more points (177) as Coleman does from counties he won by such a margin (67).

Number of Outstanding Absentee Ballots in Coleman and Franken Counties by Countywide Margin of Victory