fivethirtyeight

What seemed a far-fetched math geek dream only hours ago came true tonight: On Day Three of Minnesota’s U.S. Senate recount, the Al Franken and Norm Coleman campaigns again increased the number of challenged ballots by more than 40 percent over the previous day, to 1,525. That number dwarves by a factor of 13 the current 115-vote gap between Franken and Coleman, and suggests the challenged-ballot count will continue to grow exponentially, as MnIndy predicted Friday morning.

Simple math tells us that if the Al Franken forces and the Norm Coleman camp keep ramping up the ballot challenges, they’ll reach a combined total of 1,732 challenged ballots by the end of Minnesota’s U.S. Senate recount. That’s if each campaign continues to increase its number of challenges in the neighborhood of 140 per [...]