Felons for Franken: An Election Preview?
[Guest post by DRJ]
A Minnesota study says convicted felons may have provided the deciding margin in Senator Al Franken’s win over Norm Coleman:
“The six-month election recount that turned former “Saturday Night Live” comedian Al Franken into a U.S. senator may have been decided by convicted felons who voted illegally in Minnesota’s Twin Cities.”
No wonder Obama’s Voting Rights Division has no interest in purging the dead and ineligible from the voting rolls.
— DRJ
One of the major differences between Minnesota and Chicago is that we (Minnesota) don’t allow the dead to vote. Felons, as long as they’re Democrats, not a problem.
htom (412a17) — 7/12/2010 @ 3:35 pmBut, they still needed to find votes in the trunk of a car. If not for the felons voting, they probably would have needed a tractor trailer.
Jim (844377) — 7/12/2010 @ 4:04 pmFelons put Franken over the top?
AD - RtR/OS! (809c7f) — 7/12/2010 @ 4:09 pmHow appropriate.
His humor has verged on the criminal for some time.
Dead, illegal alien, felon. If you’re a Democrat who is none of those, how much longer til you get it?
Matador (5db43f) — 7/12/2010 @ 4:13 pmIn another thread, Hooten claims that there is no evidence of voter fraud – and that all election fraud is Republican.
Well, this means that Hooten’s reliability is unchanged.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/12/2010 @ 4:25 pmFelons For Franken
Has a catchy ring to it and makes for a nice “fake” bumper sticker to use in an oppo political ad. Too bad he is not going to be up again for re-election for a while.
elissa (f370de) — 7/12/2010 @ 4:31 pmbecause he is good
ColonelHaiku (9cf017) — 7/12/2010 @ 4:32 pmenuf and smart enuf and
the felons like him
Well done, ColonelHaiku.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/12/2010 @ 4:40 pm“…Too bad he is not going to be up again for re-election for a while“…if ever!
AD - RtR/OS! (809c7f) — 7/12/2010 @ 4:42 pm—-Well done, ColonelHaiku—
Agree, Colonel. That is one of your best evah!
For me one of the most amazing aspects of his being a senator is to see how much Franken in real life is like his “characters”. And how little acting he was actually doing all those years of SNL. Who knew?
elissa (f370de) — 7/12/2010 @ 4:53 pmCounty voter registration offices are staffed with democrat operatves through out the country not just minn.They do purge the voter lists but only the independents and republicans.Oops i forgot the military absentee ballots.While living in nevada i was prevented from voting three times by three different methods. I had to leave the state to get my rights back.
dunce (3ef93a) — 7/12/2010 @ 5:10 pmOh, wow, yet another “water found to be wet” story from the left. It’s so shocking to learn that the left gets felons, the dead, illegals, badgers, songbirds and unicorns to vote to ensure their guy wins. Shocker!
Vivian Louise (643333) — 7/12/2010 @ 5:25 pmBeing from Chicago, Obama is having trouble understanding what the problem is. Even if they were dead it’s still SOP for the dems.
MU789 (aae7a9) — 7/12/2010 @ 5:58 pma vote for Franken
ColonelHaiku (9cf017) — 7/12/2010 @ 6:13 pmexpecting some competence
just stinkin’ thinkin’
Meanwhile Brad Friedman can’t figure out how to use electronic voting machines, AGAIN!
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/12/2010 @ 7:31 pmWait a minute . . . felons vote for the candidate they believe will be more lenient towards them?
SHOCKA!!!
Icy Texan (4a2bd8) — 7/13/2010 @ 2:33 am“Tom and I would like to take this opportunity to advocate the violent overthrow of the United States government.”
Frank Drebbin (8096f2) — 7/13/2010 @ 7:55 am— Al Franken
If it is true that felons (or anyone else) voted illegally, that is terrible and steps should be taken to prevent it from happening again. But…
No-one — not the study’s authors or Fox News or anyone else — knows who the felons actually voted for. True, the Minneapolis area may be “largely Democratic,” but presuming that ALL the convicts voted for Franken is, well, presumptuous.
Simply comparing two numbers (312 & 341) and noting that they are similar is falling prey to numerical apophenia (something everyone is subject to). To say that the “election… may have been decided by convicted felons” makes just as much sense as saying the election was “decided” by Buddhist farmers over 50 years old (approximately the same number by my calculations).
The only defensible statement is that the election was decided by the 1,212,629 people who voted for Al Franken.
Anonymous Howard (9c497b) — 7/15/2010 @ 7:13 pmI didn’t look at the recent returns; the Minneapolis precinct I lived in for years frequently exceeded 85% Democratic votes in a race, sometimes exceeding 90%. “Largely Democratic” for sufficiently large values of large, I suppose.
htom (412a17) — 7/15/2010 @ 7:19 pmNice try at spinning Anonymous Howard. But that is all that it is. Spin.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/15/2010 @ 7:22 pmIsn’t it funny how our progressive little trolls are SO concerned about “every vote counting” when their people lose…and are so expansive when “their” guy wins.
I mean, Al Franken? Really?
Stand proud, Democrats!
Eric Blair (d7ba5c) — 7/15/2010 @ 7:36 pmSPQR,
That was kind of my point — it’s all spin.
341 convicted felons voted, therefore Coleman won? Nevermind that some felons can vote legally. Nevermind that some felons are Republican (true story!) Nevermind that the study authors only looked at voting records in “largely Democratic” counties and did not do the same for conservative areas. Nevermind that 341 votes is less than 1% of the margin of error in the election…
The Republican lost, therefore fraud?
The real issue here is that the election rules do not have a procedure to intelligently handle statistical ties, which is what this was.
Anonymous Howard (9c497b) — 7/15/2010 @ 7:37 pmNo, Anonymous Howard, the case for Franken being elected because of illegal voting is prima facie. Enough votes are shown to be illegal to account for his margin.
You want to make the case against, you’ll have to show something substantive, not spin.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/15/2010 @ 7:43 pm“The real issue here is that the election rules do not have a procedure to intelligently handle statistical ties, which is what this was.”
Anonymous Howard – Correction. The real issue is fair elections, making sure that only legally eligible voters vote. Why are Democrats so consistently deadset against procedures which ensure fair elections and that only legally eligible voters vote? Answer that rationally Anonymous Howard and you get a gold star.
The election rules do have procedures to handle statistical ties. What they did not do is go back and verify the eligibility of every voter.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/15/2010 @ 8:00 pmGoing back and verifying every voter’s status is less than useless, since the ballots are mingled. The time to do this is before that happens.
htom (412a17) — 7/15/2010 @ 8:10 pmAnonymous Howard, have you in your long history of academic work ever heard of outliers? How many participants in the Tour de France are meaty and how many are skinny dudes? Those wearing and competing for the green jersey are skinny dudes, those wearing and competing for the polka-dot jersey are skinny dudes, those wearing the yellow jersey are skinny dudes. The Tour de France is for skinny dudes and not meaty dudes. But there is a meaty dude or so involved. They are outliers.
A position that all felons should be allowed to vote is a far-left position and not a far-right position. The number of felons who vote illegally and vote Republican is statistically insignificant. And this report was at least 341 such felons in a small part of MN. How many felons illegally voted in the rest of the state? What about those precincts where more votes were cast than voters available?
Did you know there are some purple potatoes? Truth. But the number of purple potatoes is such an insignificant number as to be nearly nonexistent. They are outliers, just like the felons who illegally vote and vote Republican (for a group of people who say felons gave up their right to vote by committing felonies).
John Hitchcock (9e8ad9) — 7/15/2010 @ 9:54 pmhtom,
I think when an election is as screwed up as this one was, they should just hold another election and be extra careful about fraud.
I think they should go ahead and have that election this year. I realize they won’t, but that would be more just than this farce.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/15/2010 @ 10:11 pmMaybe it’s just me (do I say that a lot?), but shouldn’t elections be decided fairly by an electorate that has the right to make the decision under the laws of the states and the federal government?
Felons can’t vote for Republicans or Democrats. If they did, their votes don’t count.
It’s too late now to invalidate Stuart Smiley’s election. If the people of Minnesota are happy with their choice, I’m quite sure he will be re-elected in a fair vote.
What’s the argument? Hey, does anyone want to discuss the Census?
Ag80 (363d6e) — 7/15/2010 @ 10:21 pm