Patterico's Pontifications

10/20/2016

Throwback Thursday: Remember That RIGGED Al Franken Election?

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:19 pm



In our headlong rush to make Donald Trump get in a time machine and declare that next month’s election “was” fair — even though it hasn’t happened yet — we all might do well to remember some history that has happened: Al Franken’s 2008 Senate race, won by 312 illegal votes — all of them, and more, illegally cast.

This August 2012 piece from Byron York makes for an enjoyable if infuriating read these days.

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.

But it’s not like felons would overwhelmingly vote Democrat, is it? (Yes, that’s a joke.)

Now: felons are probably not going to be enough to throw this presidential election. Even widespread voter fraud would be unlikely to change the results of this election. Trump looks like he is headed for a historic defeat.

But . . .

But you never know.

WARNING: DIGRESSION! And in addition to felons, there is another large group of potential illegal voters out there: illegal immigrants. I wrote about this potential problem back in 2008 here:

We have gotten about 500,000 new illegal immigrants per year every year since 2004; from 2000-2004 this number was even higher, ranging from 800,000 to 850,000 new illegals every year.

We all know that these illegals do much of what citizens do: drive, work, receive health care, etc.

Many do these things off the books, driving without licenses and working without documentation. But many others do these things with phony documentation, obtaining fraudulent licenses and filling out work papers with bogus information.

Why wouldn’t they vote, too?

Of course, I’m not sure where I might have gotten the idea that illegal immigrants might be motivated to vote against Donald Trump . . .

screen-shot-2016-10-20-at-7-17-22-pm

screen-shot-2016-10-20-at-7-17-40-pm

Oh. Right.

But surely Democrats would never encourage people they believed to be illegal immigrants to vote in federal elections, right? Well . . . um . . . James O’Keefe caught Democrats on camera doing exactly that in 2014.

END DIGRESSION! Anyway, getting back to Al Franken: his 2008 Senate race, like the 2000 presidential election, shows that very important political races can come down to a handful of votes. Democrats always have the advantage in those situations, because people who would vote illegally — like felons or illegal aliens — tend to vote Democrat. So voter fraud always benefits Democrats.

No wonder Democrats want the Republican candidate to declare fraud is not a problem before we even hold the election.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

32 Responses to “Throwback Thursday: Remember That RIGGED Al Franken Election?”

  1. Ding.

    Patterico (bcf524)

  2. Well, Jimmuh Carter has made a post-Presidential career out of going to places like Venezuela and Haiti and claiming that the vote is totally legitimate pretty much before he has visited so much as one polling location.

    JVW (6e49ce)

  3. it didn’t matter how the dems got their 60 seats to impose obamacare, through prosecutorial malpractice re stevens, through stuart smalley’s strategem, or the ‘wide stance’ against larry craig, just as long as they got it,

    narciso (d1f714)

  4. Obamacare passed because nine Republicans voted for cloture. After that, the 51 Democrats would have been enough. But the nine voted again for it, and it passed 60-39 on the second vote.

    But they’ll oppose Trump while going along with Hillary. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

    nk (dbc370)

  5. whose case are you making, I’m speaking of how they secured that 60th vote,

    narciso (d1f714)

  6. Not good!

    “THE WAGES OF “SMART DIPLOMACY:” Duterte aligns Philippines with China, says U.S. has lost.”

    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/246936/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  7. I’m making a case for the truth.

    nk (dbc370)

  8. Never mind. I got my years mixed up. There were 57 Democrats in the 2009 Senate, not 51.

    nk (dbc370)

  9. nk (dbc370) — 10/20/2016 @ 8:22 pm

    4.Obamacare passed because nine Republicans voted for cloture. After that, the 51 Democrats would have been enough. >blockquote. what are yu talking abot? There were 60 non-Republicans in the Senate at the time. Hard to believe maybe, but the Senate had that big a supermajority of Democrats till Obamacare reduced it..

    Senator Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) said he had seen this movie before (1994) and decided not to run for re-election, but now, Senator Charles Schumer coaxed him back and I promised him he’d get all his seniority back (at least what he had in 2010).

    Sammy Finkelman (22cc00)

  10. See my comment just before yours, Sammy.

    nk (dbc370)

  11. can’t blame duterte, he doesn’t want to be thrown under the bus, go with the strong horse, that screws up the last 70 years of effort, his chief rival, sen. trillanes, is as much in hock to the pla ruling clique,

    narciso (d1f714)

  12. Remember the potential voter fraud in the WA state governor election (and potentially US Congressional races) in 2000 and 2004?
    http://soundpolitics.com/archives/003396.html

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/94534/whats-going-washington-state-stefan-sharkansky

    http://soundpolitics.com/archives/003402.html

    Are just some of the things some independent conservatives in the state wrote up about the voter fraud in WA state. Wanna know what the FBI said about the election? The same sort of thing they ssaid about Ms. Rodham and her emails.

    Charles (3cf0f0)

  13. Excellent post Patterico.

    But in what alternate universe do you live where this does not convince you that the Hildabeast must be stopped at all costs – including holding your nose and voting for Trump. Get over yourself and do what’s right for the country…and you KNOW that is denying Hillary the federal judiciary and bureaucracy with which to label posts like most on this site as “hate speech”.

    Bill Saracino (de7271)

  14. How can this be?? Every liberal I’ve heard say there’s not a smidgen of evidence of voter fraud anywhere! Not a smidgen!!

    Mike aka Proof (88372b)

  15. Here, yet again, Shorty is hamstrung by his ignorance.

    Being an ignoramus is never a feature; it’s always a bug.

    ThOR (c9324e)

  16. Patterico. Helping all Dems along the way.

    Jack (e5af45)

  17. Patterico has found out where his bread is buttered….a public employee union member.

    Jack (e5af45)

  18. the beta test was the dornan race in 1996, and another one with woody jenkins in lousiana, the first gave you the first of the wonderful sanchez sisters, sheesh, and the second, kept breaux in the senate if memory serves,

    narciso (d1f714)

  19. I remember that they even found 100s of uncounted ballots in someone’s trunk during the Minnesota recount.

    Tanny O'Haley (c674c7)

  20. Looking at fraud in the face of evidence, or an election close enough where a few votes matter is justified. That is not what trumps doing.

    Time123 (1c446a)

  21. And now we know why the democrats first pushed for motor-voter, then pushed for illegals to get a drivers license.

    “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.”

    But I thought I could vote cause the nice person at the DMV asked me.

    Gerald R A (7b533c)

  22. Minnesota is a temporary disability state. Felons are entitled to vote, but not while incarcerated, on parole or on probation. So some got shaped up by ward heelers while still on parole or probation. They may have even been pressured into it by their parole officers as part of their “reintegration into society”.

    nk (dbc370)

  23. These guys were low-hanging fruit. It’s easy to get the voting records from the board of elections and see that nk, narciso and GeraldA voted in the primary and asked for a Republic ballot. Then you can just go here for a preliminary check and, if you decide to prosecute, get a certified copy of the conviction. Much easier than checking for citizenship, residence or even if the person is still alive.

    nk (dbc370)

  24. 8. nk (dbc370) — 10/20/2016 @ 8:33 pm

    I got my years mixed up. There were 57 Democrats in the 2009 Senate, not 51.

    58 Democrats plus two Senators elected as independents, but who caucused with the Democrats, Joe Lieberman and Bernard Sanders.

    The election of Scott Brown in January, 2010, (I think he wasn’t sworn in until it was February) reduced the grand total from 60 to 59. (he succeeded the temporary replacement for Ted Kennedy)

    Sammy Finkelman (22cc00)

  25. 18. narciso (d1f714) — 10/20/2016 @ 10:14 pm

    the beta test was the dornan race in 1996, and another one with woody jenkins in lousiana, the first gave you the first of the wonderful sanchez sisters, sheesh, and the second, kept breaux in the senate if memory serves,

    What about the New Hampshire Senate race in 1974, Wyman vs Durkin, where in the end the Democrats succeeded in getting the eletion results thrown out, and have the eletion re-run and Durkin won in 1975?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_New_Hampshire,_1974

    And then there was ater an Indiana House race? (in 1984)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_McCloskey

    Wikipedia seems to think the election really went for McCloskey. (He eventually lost in 1994)

    Sammy Finkelman (22cc00)

  26. I’ll be watching the Toomey race for rigging in ’16. Clinton will win Pennsylvania easily but the Democrats have a problem with McGinty being weak, politically unskilled and stupid. The Democrat problem will be in whipping the Philly plantation voters to bother with anything but the President line. There’s no extra pay involved.

    Rick Ballard (1919a4)

  27. Of course the people of America will never hear much about voter fraud. Do they even care? My family back East chuckles about all the dead people who vote in Chicago every year…and then they complain that the city is broke and dysfunctional.

    Might there be a connection between your problems and the party that has run the city for 70 years?!

    Oh well, they will get what they deserve.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  28. SUNLIGHT IS THE BEST DISINFECTANT: Woman Backtracks on Assault Claim After O’Keefe Video. “A woman who accused a Donald Trump supporter of punching her outside a Trump rally in North Carolina is backtracking after James O’Keefe and Project Veritas released video showing Democrat operatives claiming she was a trained activist. 69-year-old Shirley Teter of Asheville now says it is possible that 73-year-old Richard L. Campbell merely touched her accidentally, as his attorney had claimed all along.”

    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/246980/

    Colonel Haiku (ab264c)

  29. But Gifford are for toomey, so huzzah

    narciso (d1f714)

  30. 28. Colonel Haiku (ab264c) — 10/21/2016 @ 8:35 am

    SUNLIGHT IS THE BEST DISINFECTANT:

    Sometimes, with little people.

    But Hillary Clinton thinks a selective application of sunlight can neutralize charges.

    That is abribe is not abribe, as long as it’s disclosed, and it’s taken between jobs, or goes to a spouse, or to a charitable foundation.

    It’s not even necessary really for there to be no quid pro quo – contracts for Haitian relief were given to Clinton Foundation donors because they were Clinton Foundation donors — “friends of WJC”.

    Missed it by that much.

    WJC = William Jefferson Clinton = Bill.

    Sammy Finkelman (22cc00)

  31. WARNING: DIGRESSION! And in addition to felons, there is another large group of potential illegal voters out there: illegal immigrants.

    Why illegal ones? Surely legal aliens are even more likely to vote, since they participate legally in every other aspect of public life, and don’t live in constant fear of attracting the attention of la migra. Even if caught, they can easily claim not to have known they weren’t allowed to vote, and not to have understood the declaration of eligibility on the registration form.

    Milhouse (e9b6f1)

  32. Never mind. I got my years mixed up. There were 57 Democrats in the 2009 Senate, not 51.

    58. Plus two “independents” who were Democrats when it counted. No Republicans voted for cloture, or for the bill itself.

    Milhouse (e9b6f1)


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