In a tipsy turvy election, Minnesota incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and challenger Democrat Al Franken are separated by a razor thin margin of 47 votes. State law mandates election officials and the state canvasing board to conduct a recount. This senatorial election is the last in the country yet to be decided. Out of 2.42 million votes, the tally is statistically within 0.00195%.

Do you realize how close this is? It would be like filling the Metrodome with 60,000 screaming football fans and discovering that one team had a fan advantage because there were one to two more fans cheering for the Green Bay Packers than the Minnesota Vikings. To make matters worse, some of the fans may have lost their voice in which case it would be difficult or impossible to know for sure which team they were cheering for.

After the senate recount, each side has vowed to use the legal system to further challenge the outcome.

Rather than spending millions of dollars and a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out intent of Minnesota voters, why not flip a coin and call it done? When the vote count is essentially a tie, do we really think that legal challenges and arguments are going to resolve this in a satisfactory manner?

No matter who wins after the recount and legal battles, there will always be a cloud of suspicion and skepticism hanging over the heads of the election officials and perhaps even the state supreme court.
Do us all a favor – when elections come down to a dead heat whereby the public is not going to be served well by splitting hairs from a bald head, then perhaps it is best to flip a coin so that the job of governing can continue and the job of litigation and senseless arguing can end.