Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Wall Street Journal Agrees: Franken Stole the Election

For those who think me “extreme and offensive” for insisting that Franken stole the Minnesota U. S. Senate election, then I guess you consider The Wall Street Journal extreme and offensive as well:

The unfortunate lesson is that you don't need to win the vote on Election Day as long as your lawyers are creative enough to have enough new or disqualified ballots counted after the fact.

Mr. Franken trailed Mr. Coleman by 725 votes after the initial count on election night, and 215 after the first canvass. The Democrat's strategy from the start was to manipulate the recount in a way that would discover votes that could add to his total. The Franken legal team swarmed the recount, aggressively demanding that votes that had been disqualified be added to his count, while others be denied for Mr. Coleman.

But the team's real goldmine were absentee ballots, thousands of which the Franken team claimed had been mistakenly rejected. While Mr. Coleman's lawyers demanded a uniform standard for how counties should re-evaluate these rejected ballots, the Franken team ginned up an additional 1,350 absentees from Franken-leaning counties. By the time this treasure hunt ended, Mr. Franken was 312 votes up, and Mr. Coleman was left to file legal briefs.

What Mr. Franken understood was that courts would later be loathe to overrule decisions made by the canvassing board, however arbitrary those decisions were. He was right.


The Journal’s conclusion:
Mr. Franken now goes to the Senate having effectively stolen an election. If the GOP hopes to avoid repeats, it should learn from Minnesota that modern elections don't end when voters cast their ballots. They only end after the lawyers count them.

Now The Wall Street Journal saying something doesn’t necessarily make it so (although this editorial is indeed accurate and on target, and I could add more detail). But they are deservedly well respected and hardly an extremist publication. If they are so convinced Franken stole the election, that should at least get the attention of those who care about democracy.

Hat tip to Bluegrass Pundit.

2 comments:

Sore Loserman Redux said...

Sorry, but even if you are right, this pales into utter insignificance besides the theft of the 2000 presidential election.

George Torturer Bush and Dick Torturer Cheney have destroyed the long-term viability of the United States.

How can you stand up for them?

Al Gore was properly elected in 2000, and all of your sputtering can't make it otherwise.

And how can you criticize Al Franken, even if you're right, which I doubt very much?

"Wannabe Anglican"--don't you mean "wannabe pundit"?

Anonymous said...

Let's see Bush won the actual vote and the first recount.

Obviously the Democrats play to steal an election in Florida was not as effective as the one in Minnesota. It shows what 8 years of refinement can do.