Where approximation is accurate enough.

Since an election is a poll of a population and not a sample, isn't there no margin of error?  Therefore, how can there be a statistical tie?

This guy can't be serious.  These goofs tie themselves into knots trying to come up with ways for liberals to win elections.  Even when they lose, they're out there devising ways to pull out victory.  They don't care one wit about the "will of the people," as they claim.  They only care about the attainment of power for those with whom they sympathize.

Minnesota’s instruments for counting votes are simply too crude to determine the winner in a race this tight. This is not the state’s fault. In fact, Minnesota’s election laws, procedures and equipment are among the best in the country. The problem is that a voting system that is based on physically recounting chits of paper is inherently error-prone, and in a close election like this, the errors are too large for the process to determine a winner. Even though, at the end of the recount, it will seem as if one candidate has won by a hair, the outcome will really be a statistical tie. 

How in the world did this country survive when the only available technology was pen and paper?  Simple.  They didn't have lawyers and statisticians tying the system in knots to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.  Unless Franken can prove real abuse of the system, and apparently he can't, it's time for him to concede, and time for Minnesota to declare Coleman the winner. 

Welcome to the era of unity, you racist!

.. how would we handle the unfair flip charges, gravitational interference and demands for a reflip if Coleman wins the first flip?

If the state cannot accurately and consistently count their votes the only fair thing would be to have a very large number of recounts.  Minnesota should count their votes 100 times.  If Franken wins something like 45% of those recounts I would call that a statistical tie in which case the only fair option left would be to toss a coin and leave it to chance.

…on the playground growing up:  Whenever there was a close-call that did not go their way, they’d hold up the game until everyone would acquiesce to a “do over”.  Of course, the “do over” would get done over-and-over again until the point eventually went their way.  Sometimes they'd even try to change the rules after the fact.  Only then was everything “fair”.

Such was the tactic in Florida, Washington, and now Minnesota.  We’ll just keep doing recounts until we eventually get one that goes in Franken’s favor.  Then we’ll stop and declare a victor.  Never mind that “statistically”, Coleman will have won each recount up to that point.

Basically, what Charles Seife is saying is that Franken has no chance of actually winning the election.  His only shot at legitimacy is for everyone to acquiesce to a coin flip, where Franken would at least have a 50-50 shot.  Pretty pathetic.

My only question is: where are the adults when you need them?

The Franken camp does have one argument here that may be irrefutable.  Most of the people too stupid to cast a proper ballot, were probably dumb enogh to vote for him. 

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."  - Sir Winston Churchill

"Minnesota’s instruments for counting votes are simply too crude to determine the winner in a race this tight."

Ether this man is an idiot, or he's extremely biased in favor of Franken and is willing to suspend critical thinking skills in order to convince himself, and others, that it's impossible to accurately decide a winner in a vote 'this close."

I live in Minnesota and I can attest to the sophisticated, and highly accurate, voting system we use. We use optical mark ballots here, which is the most accurate means of voting available.  Can you name any other method of voting that has an error of margin of only  "20 thousandths of a percent?"

Compared to other voting methods, our system is "king of the walk" as there are no "hanging chads," there are no "touch screens," and there are no mechanical levers to pull and possibly jam. I'm sure that n associate professor knows how accurate these type of ballots are, as they also use something very similar in scholastic tests.

It's not difficult for anyone with a modicum of intelligence to fill out a ballot here in Minnesota, and it's simplicity itself in "hand counting" a ballot.  Just look for the mark, how hard is that?

Obama: My job is above my pay grade

--Even though, at the end of the recount, it will seem as if one candidate has won by a hair, the outcome will really be a statistical tie.--

Wasn't it Mark Twain who made an observation something like this, that there three kinds of untruths--lies, damned lies, and statistics?

Plus, it's so good to see what these people really think of "every vote counts".

And I bet the odds are long indeed that they will try to same arguments if Franken somehow finagles his way to even one vote more than his opponent. 

"Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true."

Chesterton, Orthodoxy 

OK, this guy is an idiot; but you guys know that.

Let's take this moron's assumptions at face value -- there is a margin of error in human counting of votes equal to 20 thousandths of a percent. Out of about 3,000,000 votes cast, this leaves about 600 votes in dispute.

So let's say that Coleman wins by 200 votes (a reasonable assumption).  This means that to overcome the Coleman lead, Franken would have to "win" 400 out of the 600 "mistakes" (whether the mistakes are either uncounted votes or votes improperly counted for one candidate that should have gone for the other).

The author's argument is that since the 600 number is higher than the margin of victory, it is a statistical tie. This is utterly ridiculous (Mr. Seife is a journalism professor, not a stat guy).  We have lots of information that would let us know how these "mistakes" would play out.

Nearly 3,000,000 votes have been "correctly" tallied, and the result is that the votes are split between the two candidates evenly.  It stands to reason that with unbiased counters, the mistakes would also be evenly split (there is no reason to conclude otherwise).

We can use a binomial calculation to determine the probability that Mr. Franken could "win" enough of the errors to make up the 200 vote margin.  Using this calculation we can determine that Mr. Franken would have less than a one ten-thousandth percent chance of winning.  In statistics this is as close to certainty as you can get.

I did another calculation, and in order for Franken to claim any sort of statistical tie based on this margin of error, he would have to be within about 13 votes of Coleman. 

In other words, don't trust a journalist to teach anyone math.  

 We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one.

-Ronald Reagan

to calculate my taxes.

what a thumb in the eye of the voters this is.

"If you think you're finished shopping for Christmas, why not start on next year"