Panel to declare Franken winner of Senate race

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) -- A state election board on Monday will announce Democrat Al Franken has defeated Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race, state officials told CNN Sunday.

The canvassing board on Monday will say a recount determined Franken won by 225 votes, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie told CNN.

However, Coleman's campaign, which contends the recount should have included about 650 absentee ballots it says were improperly rejected in the initial count, has indicated it will challenge the certification.

Coleman campaign manager Cullen Sheehan said his team believes the recount process was broken and that "the numbers being reported will not be accurate or valid."

"The effort by the Franken campaign, supported by the secretary of state, to exclude improperly rejected absentee ballots is indefensible and disenfranchises hundreds of Minnesota voters," Sheehan said.

After the results are certified, Coleman's campaign will have seven days to file a challenge.

The initial count from the November 4 election put Coleman, a first-term senator, 215 votes ahead of Franken -- known for his stint on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and as a former talk-show host on progressive radio network Air America.

CNN

I'm glad they finally straightened that mess out. Norm will repeal the ruling, I'm sure, but I don't think anything will come of it. Al Franken is on his way to the senate. Good luck to him. Now the Democrats are one seat short of having a filibuster and veto overriding majority. I am sure they can pick up one liberal Republican to help pass their agenda. And likewise, they have the moderate and conservative Democrats to worry about as well. Having a huge majority does not guarantee success on the senate floor.

Election Results

If you haven't heard by now, Barack Obama has defeated John McCain to become the 44th President of the United States. The first bi-racial President. I don't think many Americans could say that they didn't see this coming. Obama has held significant leads over John McCain in electoral and popular polls for the past six weeks or so.

It was a short election night. The first votes were counted around 7pm, giving Obama an early victory in Vermont, while McCain won the uncontested state of Kentucky. It wasn't long before Pennsylvania was put in the blue column, and McCain's chance of victory began to look slim. They started counting the votes in Indiana, with Obama and McCain neck and neck. Obama held a commanding lead as the votes began to be counted in Florida. When they called Ohio for Obama at around 10pm eastern time, I knew the race was over. Obama would be the next President of the United States.

Obama won in an electoral landslide: 364 electoral votes to McCain's 163, twenty six states and one tie - Missouri. McCain just might win Missouri, as he has a small lead there and the votes are still being counted. The Show Me didn't live up to it's repuation of voting for the winner. Ohio prevailed, though. Next time, Missouri, next time.

For the first time in 40 years, Virginia voted for a Democrat, 22 years for North Carolina, and 44 years for Indiana. Colorado went blue, the first time in 16 years. Obama defeated McCain by landslide margins in both Nevada and New Mexico, 56-42 and 57-42 respectively. The Hispanic vote really helped him there. McCain won by a weak 9 percent in his home state of Arizona. I'm disappointed that Arizonans didn't send him a message. Oh well. Rumor has it Janet Napolitano is going to run for congress when her gubernatorial term is up in 2010. She will probably take McCain's senate seat if he decides against running for reelection. If he does, she'll probably defeat him.

It is likely, that for the first time in the state's history, Nebraska will split its electoral votes. Obama will be awarded one, bringing his electoral vote total to 365.

Obama won the popular vote, 53 to 46 percent, garnering 64, nearly 65 million votes to McCain's 57 million. Obama outperformed Kerry among virtually all demographics. He lead strongly among women, independents, Hispanics and people under 64.

Democrats increased their majority in the house and gained 5 seats in the senate, and a few of them are still being contested.

I bet the Republicans are fuming. They were hoping so much for a Bradley effect. Much to their chagrin, Obama performed as expected, and even outperformed the polls in several states. Obama won Pennsylvania by 11 points, 55-44 - stronger than Gore AND Kerry's wins, 51-46 and 51-49 respectively. For the most part, the polls were right on the money. Who said polls don't mean anything?

Unfortunately, my predictions were off quite a bit. Although, I nailed the popular vote, the senate seat and house projections were off by one, though there are still some seats undecided. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com correctly predicted the popular vote and incorrectly projected the winners of Missouri and Indiana. The site pretty much lives up to its slogan, Election Projections. Done Right. Dissapointedly Obama didn't win Georgia. The voter turnout wasn't as high as many expected. I expected 180 million people to turnout, only 130 or so million people did so. Silly me. How many registered voters are there in the country anyway? They said a lot of Republicans stayed home. I guess they were disgusted. Do you blame them? I don't. They got their asses whooped.

Here's the electoral results (map provided by Electoral-Vote):


Won't it feel good to have a President that can inspire us? One with great orotorical skills. One we actually care to listen to and who makes you listen? With McCain, it would have been Bush all over again. I'm glad America made the right choice this time. It was a clear mandate. America has spoken. The country is screaming for change. And as Obama said in his victory speech, change has come.