Senator Franken, Eventually

Image credit: Al Franken for Senate.


In case you haven't read this at Pharyngula, or Folo it's official. Al Franken has been certified as the winner in his race against incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman by 225 votes.

Unfortunately, this isn't the end of the election process for this race. Coleman will contest the recount in court, although it appears unlikely that anything will change in Coleman's favor. I suspect he'll go through the challenge nonetheless, as Nate Silver of Five Thirty-Eight explains:

Let's be frank: Norm Coleman doesn't have much of a future in electoral politics. Defeated Presidential candidates sometimes have nine lives, but defeated Senatorial candidates rarely do, and in his career running for statewide office, Coleman has lost to a professional wrestler, beaten a dead guy, and then tied a comedian. He doesn't have much to lose by fighting this to its bitter conclusion. But it's hard to envision how he'll come up with enough ballots to overtake Franken.

The Good News for Coleman...

(As usual, Nate has a great rundown on where things stand.)

That means that Franken won't be seated until the court case is resolved, which may take months. Franken accepted a couple of hours ago, and here is the introduction to his speech:

It has been a remarkable couple of months. Our recount brought national attention to Minnesota, and what Americans saw is that we take our democracy seriously. Our recount process was long, it was fair, and it was thorough. We should all be proud of our state, and we should all be grateful for the incredible hard work and dedication of all of our elections officials, from the state canvassing board and the Secretary of State’s office to the officials in the cities and counties and precincts of Minnesota.

After 62 days, after the careful and painstaking hand inspection of nearly 3 million ballots, after hours and hours of hard work by elections officials and volunteers across the state, I am proud and humbled to stand before you as the next Senator from Minnesota.

Al Franken Statement On Election Results

There's nothing in that I can argue against.