canvass

As wild as it seemed, the fluctuation of the tally last week in the Franken-Coleman U.S. Senate contest wasn’t your father’s vote roller coaster. Comparing hour-by-hour graphs from the early hours of two tight Minnesota election battles shows how in 1962 the gubernatorial election results toyed with an even tie, while 2008’s senatorial showdown was more a steady descent to a 200-vote gap.

Nate Silver, the fivethirtyeight.com political wunderkind whose prognosticating acumen landed him on the cover of today’s New York Times business section, breaks down the probabilities of who will survive the ongoing vote count in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race this morning (hat tip x 3: Braublog). His conclusion:
If, over the long run, we expect Franken to [...]