The Minnesota Majority reports (via Fox) that Ramsey County is investigating felons voting in Saint Paul during the ’08 elections:
That’s the finding of an 18-month study conducted by Minnesota Majority, a conservative watchdog group, which found that at least 341 convicted felons in largely Democratic Minneapolis-St. Paul voted illegally in the 2008 Senate race between Franken, a Democrat, and his Republican opponent, then-incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman.
The final recount vote in the race, determined six months after Election Day, showed Franken beat Coleman by 312 votes — fewer votes than the number of felons whose illegal ballots were counted, according to Minnesota Majority’s newly released study, which matched publicly available conviction lists with voting records…
…”We aren’t trying to change the result of the last election. That legally can’t be done,” said Dan McGrath, Minnesota Majority’s executive director. “We are just trying to make sure the integrity of the next election isn’t compromised.”
Naturally, the MNGOP is excited about this.
And, equally naturally, the DFL/media spin machine is not.
Writing at the MinnPost, Doug Grow – who was always almost as reliable a DFL shill as Lori Sturdevant – is on fact-check detail:
Now, some context:
- In the hyper-excited Fox News reports, Carruthers is quoted as praising the Minnesota Majority study. “What I said is that they did as well as they could do given the data they had, but much of their data is not good,” Carruthers said.
- Of the 475 cases Minnesota Majority questioned, 270 examples were just not accurate, Carruthers said.
There are reasons for so many inaccuracies, Carruthers said. For example, because of data privacy laws, Minnesota Majority was able only to get year of birth of many of the people they claimed had voted illegally. But, for the group to be sure it had the right individual, it would have needed the actual date of birth.
“In a state with so many Johnsons,’’ said Carruthers, “you have many people with the same name born in the same year. You have to have date of birth, to be sure you have the right person.’’
I’m suspecting there aren’t that many Johnsons on the list. Just a hunch.
- Additionally, Carruthers said, Minnesota Majority would not have had access to changes in sentencing. For example, a person who initially had been sentenced to 10 years of probation may have had that probation reduced during the period of the sentence. At that point, the individual’s civil rights – including the right to vote – would have been restored.
Now, that might hold water.
Still, there were people who voted, or registered to vote, who were not eligible. That’s a felony, and if found guilty, they could face five years in prison and a $10,000, though Carruthers said that would be unlikely.
Not as unlikely as “reform” – or as Doug Grow is to answer the question “how many felons are acceptable?” in an election.
But I am so so so so glad that the likes of Grow are finally focusing on making sure media coverage is accurate. Thank you, Doug Grow. Thank you so very much.
Last year, I live-blogged the House hearing for photo ID in which David Schultz declared that voter fraud was “statistically insignificant.”
312 votes out of 2.9 million votes cast sounds like a statistically insignificant amount, doesn’t it? When will the benchmark be an electorally significant amount?
If the Democrats think requiring a picture ID is so onerous ($11, fer Jebus sake), set up a damn fund to provide one for the po folk. Act on your principles. Or maybe just acquire a few.
Before you get too excited, you might want to check out Hamline law prof David Schultz’s law review articles on the subject.
It turns out that based on census data from the 2000 census, there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% estimated of the eligible population that doesn’t vote, doesn’t even register to vote.
In most elections, the greater the number of those nonparticipating voters who are encouraged to join the great electoral process, the better it tends to work for democratic candidates, and to a lesser extent, independents and against republicans and conservatives.
Which is why so very many of the efforts, both official and unofficial, have focused on stopping these voters – some legal, some not legal. Voter picture ID would not stop felons, who pretty much appear to have acted in good faith, some of them claiming to have been misinformed by officials.
If you look at the instances, all or nearly all, of the established cases of this appear to be individuals on some kind of end of their case penalties. There were something like 20 cases like that in the past election.
If you checked out the current Strib article on this, the right is blowing the numbers way way waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy the heck out of proportion, and those are maybe, not established.
We do not appear to have people who shouldn’t vote that would be stopped by ID.
If you support the idea of small government – that government governs best that governs least? – then you don’t pass laws to make something like voting harder, without a really clear problem to warrant a law, and without a really really clear set of proof that the law would actually SOLVE the problem. It’s proposals like that where I have a problem with the supposed conservative principles when they are put into action.
Emmer was big on pushing that law that would not solve the problem — but would sure as crime be to the advantage of the right at the expense of the larger electorate.
Er, wait – two weeks ago, you sniffed down your nose at Michelle Malkin – a genuine journalist – because she had a “right wing axe to grind” (as opopsed to the HuffPo, of course), and now you’re giving us articles by Dave Schultz? Former head of Common Cause (an organization that exists to choke off free information but to make sure that people get duly shuffled through the polls every two years, provided that they’re Democratic constituents)?
Why not provide quotes from Trotsky, while you’re up?
Before you get too excited, you might want to check out Hamline law prof David Schultz’s law review articles on the subject.
Schultz is not a law prof at Hamline. He is a professor at Hamline’s school of business.
And as I don’t subscribe to the Hamline Law Review (although I read it for Joe Olson’s occasional articles on Second Amendment Law, where he has truly led the nation’s legal academy for the past twenty years), would providing a link kill you?
It turns out that based on census data from the 2000 census, there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% estimated of the eligible population that doesn’t vote, doesn’t even register to vote.
So?
In most elections, the greater the number of those nonparticipating voters who are encouraged to join the great electoral process, the better it tends to work for democratic candidates, and to a lesser extent, independents and against republicans and conservatives.
Again – so?
Which is why so very many of the efforts, both official and unofficial, have focused on stopping these voters – some legal, some not legal.
That is an allegation that the Dems throw out every couple of years to whip up their victimhood entitlement. Some conservative justifiably question the wisdom and (especially) motivations of “get out the vote” efforts that are entirely focused on getting people who are ignorant and unaware of the issues and largely being cajoled to the polls to vote for a single issue or candidate, but every single GOP effort is aimed at stopping Millegal voters.
Voter picture ID would not stop felons, who pretty much appear to have acted in good faith, some of them claiming to have been misinformed by officials.
“Honest, officer – it was that election judge’s fault! And that crack pipe belongs to my friend! No, I never got his name; I met him at another friend’s house! What? Hey, someone else dropped that gun under my seat! I lent my car to this other guy. Chachi, I think his name was!”
If you look at the instances, all or nearly all, of the established cases of this appear to be individuals on some kind of end of their case penalties.
Does the law mean what it says it means, or not?
There were something like 20 cases like that in the past election.
So far.
If you checked out the current Strib article on this, the right is blowing the numbers way way waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy the heck out of proportion, and those are maybe, not established.
No, “the right” is not. The Minnesota Majority is relating the numbers of questionable cases they’ve found. They have turned those cases over to the Ramco Attorney. In the meantime, Mark Ritchie is trying to run out the clock, since the records by law must be destroyed in November.
We do not appear to have people who shouldn’t vote that would be stopped by ID.
Er, only if you ignore what Mr. Carruthers said.
If you support the idea of small government – that government governs best that governs least? – then you don’t pass laws to make something like voting harder, without a really clear problem to warrant a law
First of all – yes. If you favor limited government, you make sure that elections have integrity.
And if the Minnesota Majority’s efforts find similar abuses elsewhere in Minnesota – and remember, Ramco is 5% of the population, hasn’t finished examinng all of the MM’s complaints, and has already filed 28 charges. If that ratio is continued throughout the state, that’s going to be 560 votes (and surveys show felons vote 90+% Democraticicic).
We don’t know that there’s not a problem; the DFL and media (pardon the redundancy) want to keep it that way.
Emmer was big on pushing that law that would not solve the problem — but would sure as crime be to the advantage of the right at the expense of the larger electorate.
So it benefits “the larger electorate” if our elections have no integrity?
Interesting.
The “larger electorate” as opposed to the “right”. I sense a whiff of DFL entitlement to perennial power in Doggie’s observation.
Heh. This is sooo sweet. The moonbats are flapping around in circles, looking for an out where there is none and it’s the funniest thing I’ve witnessed since da wedge outed himself as a IRS snitch.
deegee’s going to have to lay in a lot of Victory gin to weather this storm.
Speaking of da wedge, you all need to check out the comment thread at Minnpost’s coverage of the Frankenfelons…the ‘bats are “mau-mauing” themselves…hi-f*cking-larious!
http://tinyurl.com/3ytdylu