Byron York: How Al Franken Stole The Election With The Help of 1,099
Felons’ Vote
By Clash Daily / 9 August 2012
In the ’08 campaign, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman
was running for re-election against Democrat Al Franken. It was impossibly
close; on the morning after the election, after 2.9 million people had voted,
Coleman led Franken by 725 votes.
Franken and his Democratic allies dispatched an army of lawyers to challenge the results. After the first canvass, Coleman’s lead was down to 206 votes. That was followed by months of wrangling and litigation. In the end, Franken was declared the winner by 312 votes. He was sworn into office in July 2009, eight months after the election.
During the controversy a conservative group called
Minnesota Majority began to look into claims of voter fraud. Comparing criminal
records with voting rolls, the group identified 1,099 felons — all ineligible
to vote — who had voted in the Franken-Coleman race.
Minnesota Majority took the information to prosecutors across the state, many of whom showed no interest in pursuing it. But Minnesota law requires authorities to investigate such leads. And so far, Fund and von Spakovsky report, 177 people have been convicted — not just accused, but convicted — of voting fraudulently in the Senate race. Another 66 are awaiting trial.
“The numbers
aren’t greater,” the authors say, “because the standard for convicting someone
of voter fraud in Minnesota is that they must have been both ineligible, and
‘knowingly’ voted unlawfully.” The accused can get off by claiming not to have
known they did anything wrong.
Still, that’s a total of 243 people either
convicted of voter fraud or awaiting trial in an election that was decided by
312 votes. With 1,099 examples identified by Minnesota Majority, and with
evidence suggesting that felons, when they do vote, strongly favor Democrats,
it doesn’t require a leap to suggest there might one day be proof that Al
Franken was elected on the strength of voter fraud.
Read more at washingtonexaminer.com
