Erick Ericson at Red State has a post up this morning about the Minnesota senate race. Guess what, that mean Al Franken and us evil Democrats are STEALING the race. Want proof? Follow me under the fold...
Erickson cites the fact that Coleman's 800 vote lead has shrunk to around 200 during the canvassing process as the basis for his suspicions of voter fraud. To start, he needs to get his numbers right, the lead on election nigh was nearer 700 than 800.
Next, Erickson points to two incidents that bolster his claim. First:
32 absentee ballots were found over the weekend with a Democratic Party operative. We don't really know from where other than the operative's car. The judge involved let the votes be counted.
The problem with this claim is that it has already been debunked by the Secretary of State:
But Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie told FOXNews.com that anybody trying to cast a "cloud" over the election process is doing so for political reasons.
He said the Coleman claims about the 32 ballots were "ridiculous" and "mythological," and that the absentee ballots had been safely stored at the local election facility. "Those ballots were always properly handled," he said. "But the lie has persisted."
The second piece of "proof" that Erickson spews is compelling:
In Mountain Iron, MN, the local Democrat machine discovered 100 ballots that needed to be counted. All 100 of the ballots went for Obama. And all 100 of the ballots went for Franken. Let's leave out the round number, which in and of itself should raise suspicions. No part of Minnesota, including the Iron region north of Duluth up to Canada (that part of the state heavily influenced by machine politics on the left) saw straight party voting between Franken and Obama. Sure there were some. But for a group of Democrats to pull out 100 ballots and have 100% go Obama and Franken defies the odds.
Except it isn't compelling, because it is completely wrong:
In Pine County, an election official accidentally entered 24 votes for Franken on Tuesday night instead of the 124 he actually received. The mistake was caught on Thursday and the numbers changed, said Jim Gelbmann from the Secretary of State's office.
The error was in the reporting of the tally, not in finding an extra 100 ballots. A simple google search leads to about a dozen stories on this issue, all of which more or less get it right. None of the stories indicate that this was anything other than a tally error. But of course Erickson never lets facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.
So the Red State Fashion Show continues. Tin Foil Hats. Panties in a Twist. Non-facts and debunked lies.