You're forgetting there's two parts to the example. If the Nader voters had voted their actual preferences (Nader Gore Bush) Bush would had one. While they certainly prefer Gore winning, the only way that happened was because a third of the Nader voters lied and said Bush was their favorite candidate. Moreover, it was the fact that Bush got a third of the Nader voters to vote for him that caused him to lose. So Bush would have been better off telling people NOT to vote for him.

A voting system where 1) voters gain strategic advantage from lying about their actual preferences and 2) politicians gain strategic advantage telling people not to vote for them can only be described as perverse.

So more people voted for A, without changing their view of C, and that caused A to lose the election and C to win.

Not sure why that's a problem.

11 people preferred A, 14 preferred someone other than A. Eliminating the third choice, 11 preferred A, 7 preferred C, and six have their vote reallocated to their second choice, C, pushing him over the top.

Let's substitute real names.

6 Nader Gore Bash
3 Bush Gore Nader
8 Bush Nader Gore
7 Gore Bush Nader

Nader gets eliminated leaving

11 Bush first choice
7 Gore first choice
6 Gore second choice

Gore wins 13-11

Why is that a bad outcome?

Suppose there are three candidates, and we get the following votes:

9 B>C>A
8 A>B>C
7 C>A>B

In the first run off round eliminates candidate C, leading to:

9 B>A
15 A>B

So A wins. Now, consider instead:

6 B>C>A
3 A>C>B
8 A>B>C
7 C>A>B

Notice the only change is that three of the B>C>A voters changed to A>C>B. Now the first round eliminates B:

13 C>A
11 A>C

So C wins. So more people voted for A, without changing their view of C, and that caused A to lose the election and C to win.

Yeeesh, great a borda count.

Instant run-off basically allows people to both express their 1st choice preference and their realistic fallback. So, you could vote Libertarian or Lizard People or whatever as your first choice and, failing a majority voting for anyone, you'd then go to votes for the first two candidates plus second choice votes from those who voted for candidates 3-5.

In this particular case, where a significant third party candidate was in the race, I'd have preferred instant run-off voting, which allows people to vote for their first and second choice, with the latter used if no one got a majority. That, incidentally, would almost surely have resulted in an easy Franken win.

Yeeesh, great a borda count.

The statement "But the continued discovery of new Franken ballots" is a bit misleading. The article said 171 uncounted ballots were found; 104 ballots were for Fraken, but the balance of 67 were for Coleman. Why not say "But the continued discovery of new Coleman ballots"?

haven't been following the story have you. there has been a lot of "oh look, al got more votes today" going on. this isn't the first time he has magically picked up votes. there were also votes in the backseat of an election officials car, a mis-placed zero, etc all of which favored franken. people say its suspicious bc it is, kos kid.

Scary stuff with all these Frankenballots and Werevotes running around unchecked.

If the lost ballots keep favoring Franken, then one of two questions must be asked; Where are these "lost" ballots coming from, i.e., are they a plant? If they are not a plant, then why did a pool of votes that favored Franken get lost in the first place.

Makes me feel just like Jeanie Dixon......
But let's face it... It ain't that hard,now is it?

I dunno.
Wouldn't that kinda require a sex change operation?

Excuse me, but there were 171 uncounted ballots because of a ballot-counting-machine malfunction on Election Day. Franken got 91 of the total, 54 Norm Coleman and 26 for other candidates. So, if your glass is half empty, the headline could be More Coleman Ballots Found !
At best, shouldn’t the headline be MN Count Continues, Franken Gains 37 Votes.
The implication is that only Franken has gained in the process. Franken and Coleman have both seen their totals change. Of course, the other implication is the acknowledgement that since these voters were “found”, they must have been “lost” … I guess, everyone should be glad that there are found.

Regarding the evaluation of absentee ballots, this may be the “good news” of this election as it exposes a problem that needs to be corrected.
If you go in person to vote, the registration is checked and you are given a ballot. If there is a problem with the registration, that can be corrected right then and there. If you leave without casting a ballot, you know the reason why.
If you submit an absentee ballot, you do not know if your ballot was accepted. Although absentee ballots did not have to be returned until Election Day, most people did return them early. At that time, the election clerks reviewed and rejected ballots, but DID NOT tell the voter that the ballot was rejected, or why it was rejected. For example, some of the ballots were rejected for lack of a signature in the proper spot; those could have easily been corrected.

It is the rejected absentee voters that are truly the losers … not Norm Coleman or Al Franken … they thought their votes would count, but because of a correctable judgment by many election clerks, their vote didn’t count..

It’s a fair question. In extremely close elections, we may simply not be able to get the count 100 percent right. That’s especially true when human judgment has to be applied as to whether a particular ballot is properly marked. But the continued discovery of new Franken ballots and second guessing of initial decisions mostly going Franken’s way naturally raises suspicion of foul play, even though it’s likely just a case of imperfect officials trying to do their job. Either way, though, the process is an embarrassment.

What's subtlety and nuance doing on a conservative site? Haven't you read Powerline? Little Green Footballs? The Corner? Hugh Hewitt? Sean Hannity? Here, let me rewrite that to make it 'conservative':

This election is only close because the media is totally biased in favor of the democrat and wants to hug him and kiss him and fool around in the back seat of a Pontiac with him. 100% of the votes that were miscounted are fabricated by the Dems. Furthermore Al Franken is a gay terrorist satanist and if you vote for him you're not a real American and your name probably ends in 'bin Laden'.

There you go. Now it's conservative.