David

Karki

Read David's bio and previous columns here

November 17, 2008

Al Franken's Slow-Motion Cheating

We all remember Florida 2000, and that bug-eyed guy looking at Florida punch ballots with their dimpled, pregnant or hanging chads and trying to divine what the person who punched it – presuming they were indeed fully responsible for its condition and the ballot wasn't subsequently tampered with – meant to indicate.

That was an exercise in insanity, and thankfully it didn't result in an overturned presidential election, which might just have led to the Disunited States. But sadly, that wasn't the last time we would have to deal with those who refuse to accept close defeat when it is dealt to them.

As I write this column, the Minnesota DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) Party is slowly stealing a U.S. Senate election for its candidate, the humorless comedian Al Franken. Incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman won re-election by 725 votes as of the morning after Election Day, a total that was ratcheted down to 477 by that evening, down to 277 a few days later, and now down to 203. With each passing day the margin has magically dwindled, and by the time the legally required recount is finally done, it seems almost as inevitable as frigid winters that Franken will – surprise, surprise! – come out on top.

Minnesota law requires an audit of the initial Election Day count before the Secretary of State certifies the result. If the result is sufficiently close, which this certainly is, an automatic recount is then performed. That result is re-certified, and if any campaign feels a wrong was done, the election is ultimately contested in court.

The “audits” that have been done have resulted in nothing but additional votes for Franken being found. There have been none for Coleman, for Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley (who received a 15 percent-plus share of the vote), or for any of the other minor-party candidates. Statistically, this is a virtual impossibility – the same odds as winning the lottery. And it shouldn't pass anyone's personal smell test.

In the liberal stronghold of Two Harbors, a port town on Lake Superior an hour northeast of Duluth, Franken picked up 246 more votes – half his total gain – based on officials claiming they initially accidentally misreported numbers. In Partridge Township, he got another hundred. In both cases, there were no other errors reported on any other contests on the ballot – just the Senate race. And all 346 were missed votes for Franken and no one else.

To date, Franken has received more adjusted “votes” since Election Day (482 total) than all other adjusted votes in all Minnesota precincts for the presidential, congressional and state House races combined.

Are we really supposed to believe there were 482 legitimate errors by voters, or a lesser number combined with legitimate counting errors, that all came in one contest and all in one direction? And that at the same time there were virtually no errors in all other contests and none benefitting any other Senate candidates?

If it walks, talks and smells like cheating, it's cheating. And sadly, there isn't anyone in a position to stop this that isn't a partisan Democrat and therefore willing to ignore or abet the effort so as to produce the result they personally want.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is a total liberal hack, whose campaign was funded by ACORN – a Marxist group now known for vote fraud on a nationwide scale – and the far-left MoveOn.org. He was never fit to hold an office whose main job is election integrity, and when ACORN was being shown to have manufactured thousands of fraudulent registrations on the Minnesota rolls, he blithely ignored the evidence and pulled the press conference equivalent of the Wizard of Oz “ignore that man behind the curtain” scene.

Nor has he been willing to make available the tapes from the vote-scanning machines. By all rights, he should be removed from office for failure to perform his sworn duties. Certainly, he shouldn't be trusted as far as he can be thrown.

And he's part of the five-person board who'll be attempting to divine voters' “intent,” a board made of three Democrats and two Republicans. Gee, can't imagine how disputes will be settled. You think there could be some 3-2 splits along partisan lines? 

As of today, Ritchie has certified a 203-vote win for Coleman following the audit, which really doesn't mean anything since the count can legally change and be re-certified based on the required full recount, which will occur over the next two-to-three weeks.

And then the election can be contested in court, which it almost certainly will be by whoever “loses” it. That means judges may ultimately decide this – judges who themselves bring substantial political bias to the bench and know as well as anyone what the practical effect of their ruling will be. To presume that this won't enter into their determination is naïve in the extreme.

The Coleman campaign has done a thorough job of defending itself and challenging everything that needs to be.  But there sure is a feeling of inevitability with this slow-motion election theft by Franken, Ritchie, the DFL and the media, which has been ignoring all of this. Will anyone be able to stop this crooked juggernaut? Does anybody even care?

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

Click here to talk to our writers and editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.

To e-mail feedback about this column, click here. If you enjoy this writer's work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry it.

This is Column # DKK152. Request permission to publish here.