“Land of 10,000 Lakes”, More or Less

Minnesota has certified their election today and awarded Al Franken the Senate seat that has been in contest since November. On election night, Norm Coleman had a 725 vote lead. Now, after the combined efforts of a few county boards, and the Democratic Secretary of State, Democrat Al Franken leads Coleman by 225 votes. This election is sure to now head to the courts.

An op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal points out a few of the more laughable moments that have lead to this outcome. First, more than 25 of the precincts in Minnesota have more ballots than voters who signed to vote. According to the WSJ, "State Supreme Court Justice G. Barry Anderson has acknowledged that 'very likely there was a double counting, '". Ramsey County ended up with 177 more ballots than there were recorded votes on Election Night.

In a number of counties there were discrepancies between the number of votes cast and the number of ballots available for recount. It appears from the news today that the state canvassing board decided to count which ever tally benefited Mr. Franken. More votes on election night than today? Go with election night if it helps Al. More votes today? They were probably lost; count them if they were for Al.

Before the recount began, we had a preview of what was to come. Election officials "corrected" typos on their reports from election night. These typos were to the tune of some 500 votes from Norm Coleman to Al Franken. John Lott, Jr. has pointed out that virtually all of these corrections occurred in three counties. Most of these changes occurred in the Democratic precinct of Two Harbors. Writing for Fox News, Mr. Lott points out, "To put this change in perspective, [Two Harbors] corrections accounted for a significantly larger net swing in voters between the parties than occurred for all the precincts in the entire state for presidential, congressional, or state house races."

After screaming "selected not elected" for eight years, it appears the Democratic Party is ready to show the nation how one truly steals an election. When this entire process started, The Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie, remarked that Minnesota is known for its fair and open elections. I guess that reputation is a thing of the past.