New right-wing book claims Al Franken won due to voter fraud...

[Archae]

Just look at the two losers who write this waste of good toilet paper.

Right-wingers are in a tizzy over excerpts from a new book by two of the GOP’s leading voter-fraud hucksters alleging that Minnesota’s Democratic Senator Al Franken would not have won a statewide recount in 2009 were it not for ex-felons voting illegally.

They are jumping to the false conclusion that illegal felon voting in November 2008 not only tipped a recount in which Franken won by 312 votes—out of 2.4 million cast between the two men—but that tougher state voter ID laws would have changed the result. Both claims are wrong.

(snip)

The problem with this assertion—from a newbook by The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund and George W. Bush Justice Department attorney Hans von Spakovsky—is that it is not just factually wrong, according to Minnesota Supreme Court records, the Minnesota prosecutor who investigated most of the cases, and some of the country’s top election scholars, but it is intended to rile a segment of the Right that thinks it is patriotic to demonize voting by non-whites and disrupt voting for everyone else.

http://www.alternet.org/gop-voter-fraud-hucksters-latest-lie-felons-made-franken-us-senator?paging=off

[grasswire]

1. John Fund is a douche bag.

And who the heck is Hans von Spankovsky?

Sigh. Haven't we had enough of this kind of politics? This reminds me of wolves chasing their prey. Circling and slashing and wearing away, taking the hunted down.

[stevedeshazer]

9. Two words: Morgan Pillsbury

The 27 year old woman he sat on and choked.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-05-14/news/john-fund-hope-of-freedom/

[Confusious]

11. Spankovsky

A guy who is really, really pissed about his name.

There was probably no end to the teasing in high school.

Instead of learning from it, he became a dick himself.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

14. John Fund, the guy that beats up women? THAT John Fund?

[unblock]

2. imho, any law disenfranchising felons is heinous and wrong.

governments ought not have the power to pick and choose voters.

it's a recipe for corruption, as we've already seen with disparate sentences and enforcement for crack vs. cocaine, the black population in the states that are big on felon disenfranchisement, etc.

it's just plain bad government, and it's exactly the sort of thing our founders would have been dead-set against. arguably, they thought the ninth amendment would have prevented such laws.



some day they're going to just arrest any minority driving a car, then charge them with some b.s. law and impound the car for a year until trial while dangling some ridiculous sentence over their heads, but offer a "deal" where all you have to do is agree to give up your voting rights for life and they'll drop all the other charges.

too unsubtle to ever really happen, you say? you forget what they've actually done already.


if franken won with the votes of a few ex-felons, well, nothing illegitimate about that.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. Thank you

Not many people mention this but I never understood how it's legal and/or constitutional for states to disenfranchise felons and/or make it practically impossible for people coming out of prison to "restore" their voting privileges. IMHO as soon as somebody is released from prison, they should simply be able to go back to voting again if they want.

[unblock]

7. i go even further than that. i think it's complete horsesh*t even to disenfranchise prisoners.

again, i don't think any legitimate government should have the power to pick and choose voters.

ultimately, they could go so far as to lock undesirable voters up on election day and release them the next day.

no way. jails and prisons should be required to provide means for prisoners to vote.


it's NOT a matter of what the prisoners deserve, it's a matter of powers NO government should have.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

8. I would agree with that as well

It's amazing that our country- considered the leader of the free world- is so "un-free" in so (too) many ways!

[lpbk2713]

3. Still whining after all this time.

They should be ashamed. Get over it, you lost.




      [big] "WAAAH!! No fair!!" [/big]

[dflprincess]

4. Coleman's own recount lawyers have said there was no evidence of fraud

yet the rightwing nuts in Minnesota continue to cite the "fraud" in that race as the reason we need voter ID passed here.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

6. Sour grapes

Al Franken won the seat fair and square- and endured months of recounts so that all parties could ensure a legitimate outcome. Your guy lost! Deal with it!

[WI_DEM]

10. Any time you count all the votes they will yell 'election fraud'

[Gothmog]

12. These claims have been debunked

These claims are not true http://www.alternet.org/gop-voter-fraud-hucksters-latest-lie-felons-made-franken-us-senator?akid=9186.102169.TnMJb9&rd=1&t=1

The problem with this assertion—from a new book by The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund and George W. Bush Justice Department attorney Hans von Spakovsky—is that it is not just factually wrong, according to Minnesota Supreme Court records, the Minnesota prosecutor who investigated most of the cases, and some of the country’s top election scholars, but it is intended to rile a segment of the Right that thinks it is patriotic to demonize voting by non-whites and disrupt voting for everyone else.

“They are talking in code to their base,” said Rutgers University’s Lori Minnite, co-author of Keeping Down The Black Vote: Race and the Demobilization of American Voters . “My guess is that von Spakovsky and Fund know exactly what they are doing.”

“There is no basis in fact, whatsoever, in these inaccuracies propagated by the Minnesota Majority here, none,” Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said Wednesday. “After the most closely scrutinized election in Minnesota history in 2008, there were zero cases of fraud. Even the Republicans lawyers acknowledged that there was no systematic effort to defraud the election, none.”

[Arkana]

13. I love how much the right seethes with rage

over Al Franken's election to the Senate.

[krispos42]

15. yeah, because only REPUBLICANS can win by fraud

Bush, twice, and how did Lindsey Graham get to run against that unknown, unemployed, Democrat again???