Several e-mails inform me that Al Franken is now ahead in the recount of the Senatorial election in Minnesota. That may be so according to one set of numbers but every single ballot count (and recount) has been so close that the uncounted (or unrecounted) could easily invert the lead the next day. Who's ahead is just a function of which ballots have been tallied and which haven't…not an indicator of what the total will be. So it doesn't really prove anything that Franken is ahead today just as it didn't prove anything when Norm Coleman was ahead yesterday.
What it all does prove is that we're very, very sloppy about how we count ballots in this country. Almost every precinct recount in Minnesota has yielded a different total than the first time through. Sometimes, the change benefits one guy; sometimes, it benefits the other. The significant thing is that it's different each time. You wonder what would happen if they counted them a third time. Would we then have a third set of precinct totals? Wouldn't it be nice if we did this so efficiently that if you counted the ballots ten times, you'd get the same total ten times? That's how it's supposed to work in banking.
Hey, maybe we could bring in bank tellers to count the votes. It looks like a lot of them are going to be at liberty…