Michele Bachmann, John Kline

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has missed more votes than all but two of her House colleagues, both of whom were ill.

Bachmann is running for the GOP nod for president and spends much of her time in Iowa and other early primary states. She missed 26 percent of all votes so far in 2011, according to a New York Times’ analysis of House attendance. In missed votes, Bachmann trails only Rep. Maurice Hinchey of New York, who is ill, and Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in January.

Rep. Ron Paul, who is also running for president, missed 21.3 percent of 2011 votes.

But Bachmann has vastly improved her voting record since this summer, when the Hill reported that she had missed 37 percent of all House votes from the time she declared her candidacy until late July.

Even before she officially declared her candidacy, Bachmann had a higher proportion of missed votes than most members of the House. A Minnesota Independent report last year found that many of her missed votes coincided with media appearances.

The analysis shows Rep. Keith Ellison also missed 11.3 percent of the year’s votes, mostly because of a leg injury earlier this year.

The New York Times’ analysis of House attendance showed a bright spot for Minnesota, with Rep. John Kline being one of only 15 House members to make every one of the 814 votes so far this year.

Al Franken (Photo: Aaron Landry) and Norm Coleman (Photo: WDCpix.com)

Two days into Minnesota’s statewide election recount, Al Franken and U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman are challenging ballots at a pace that could end up sending more than 1,700 disputed votes to the state’s Canvassing Board to sort out. Each campaign claims the other’s challenges are frivolous, but frivolous or not, they are both making them at a rate that’s increasing rather than slacking off, as some said would happen. The challenged-ballot count remains neck-and-neck: Coleman’s crowd has challenged 374 so far, Franken’s 360.

As the number of challenged ballots grows — it’s at 734 combined as of today, with 42.33 percent of ballots cast Nov. 4 now recounted — the margin between the rival candidates shrinks. Figures from the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office, which is posting updates every night at 8 p.m., now indicate that Coleman’s lead over Franken has shrunk again and now stands at 129. It’s only a snapshot in a process that hasn’t yet reached the halfway mark, but it’s a snapshot in which the vaunted Coleman “victory” appears to be fading fast.

The picture that’s emerging is of a recounted total that remains a near-tie, with the election hanging on the judgment of the five state Canvassing Board members’ evaluation of the growing stack of challenged ballots.

Tonight’s totals, which don’t include the 734 challenged ballots, have Norm Coleman at 534,687 votes (212 fewer votes than the original count indicated from the same ballots) and Al Franken with 494,930 votes (126 fewer than on the first count of the same ballots). Subtracting those votes lost in the course of the recount so far brings the pre-recount gap of 215 down to a 129 margin that currently favors Coleman.
Note: The Star Tribune has slightly different numbers based on the secretary of state’s figures as well as on reports the Strib gathers from individual counties or recount sites after 8 p.m. With 46 percent of ballots recounted statewide, the Strib puts the gap between Franken and Coleman at 136, with greater numbers of challenged ballots for each: Coleman, 409; Franken, 414.