...Under the constitution, the Senate is the final arbiter of its membership, MPR noted.
...To win his case before the state Canvassing Board, Franken must prevail on more than 6 percent of his challenges of Coleman votes even if Coleman fails to succeed on any of his challenges, a Star Tribune analysis shows....
News Graphic: Challenging math: Predicting a Senate winner (click here)
Jim Freitag, Star Tribune
This chart shows what the winning vote margin would be in the U.S. Senate race based on the percentage of the ballot challenges each candidate wins. For example, if each candidate wins 30 percent of their challenges, then Sen. Norm Coleman wins by 209 votes. But if Coleman wins 30 percent of his challenges and Franken wins 50 percent of his challenges, then Franken wins by 339 votes. Most challenged ballots involve one candidate trying to prevent the vote being awarded to the other candidate, or trying to claim that a spoiled ballot is actually a vote for him. However, if a challenge is resolved by switching a vote from one candidate to the other — an extremely rare occurrence — then the numbers in this chart would change slightly in favor of the candidate who wins more of those challenges. That's because a switched vote would result in a net change of two votes (one vote less for one candidate and one vote more for the other candidate); all the other challenges would be a net change of just one vote.you can view the Graphic.
