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Home | Politically Connected | National Politics | U.S. Senate
About the Senate result projections based on ballot challenges
How the choices you make on challenged ballots affect the projected vote totals for Coleman and Franken.
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Projected vote totals are calculated based on the results of the ballots you’ve reviewed in the Ballot Challenge. The more challenged ballots you review, the more accurate the projections will become. For challenged ballots that you do not review, the program will automatically assign “votes” to Coleman or Franken based on the percentage of ballots you selected for each candidate. For example, if your review found that 60 percent of the ballots should have gone to Coleman and 40 percent to Franken, the program will assign 60 percent of your unreviewed ballots to Coleman and 40 percent to Franken. The program will start assigning unreviewed ballots to the candidates after you decide 50 ballots. The program will also divide any challenges for which we don't have ballot images yet.
To help gauge the significance of the sample of ballots you’ve selected, pay attention to the margin of error. This shows the range of votes that are possible for each candidate based on the number of ballots you have reviewed. A margin of error of plus or minus 120 votes, for example, indicates that the total vote could be 120 votes higher or 120 votes lower. As a general guide, if a candidate’s lead is less than the margin of error, the projection is not very reliable. The vote margin of error will decrease as you review more challenged ballots. There are other possible sources of error that are not reflected in these calculations. For example, the formula assumes that the challenges you review are similar to any challenges you have yet to review. But because the campaigns challenged more ballots as the recount progressed, this may not be true.
The results labeled “Your choices” are calculated using your votes only. The results labeled “Everyone” is a compilation of everyone who has reviewed challenged ballots on this site. The numbers shown for each candidate indicate that a majority of people reviewing those ballots said they should be awarded to that candidate. Only ballots that have been voted on by at least 50 people are included in the "Everyone" totals.
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