Scarborough again baselessly claimed Franken can "steal" votes in Minnesota Senate race
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SUMMARY: On Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough again suggested that Al Franken is willing to "steal" votes in order to prevail against Sen. Norm Coleman. In making the suggestion, Scarborough again gave no evidence of any wrongdoing by Franken. Gov. Tim Pawlenty stated as recently as November 16 that "[a]s of this moment, there is no actual evidence of wrongdoing or fraud in the process."
On the November 21 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, co-host Joe Scarborough declared that Minnesota Democrat Al Franken "only needs to steal 130 more votes to win" his Senate race against incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman (R), which is currently undergoing a recount. Scarborough similarly asserted on November 19, "If Al Franken can steal enough votes in Minnesota, that's get -- that gets Democrats to 59" Senate seats. In neither case did Scarborough offer any evidence of any wrongdoing by Franken or any willingness on Franken's part to do anything wrong to win. As Media Matters for America noted, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) stated as recently as November 16 that "[a]s of this moment, there is no actual evidence of wrongdoing or fraud in the process." Media Matters can find no evidence that Pawlenty has since revised his assessment. According to a November 15 Minneapolis Star-Tribune article, Pawlenty also said "he had complete confidence in the integrity of the recount that will be overseen by the state Canvassing Board" and quoted him stating: "That five-person Canvassing Board ... will run a fair and appropriate process, and they will render a fair and appropriate result."
Scarborough also falsely asserted on the November 21 edition of Morning Joe, "all the votes that were mis -- miscast were all miscast for the same guy, huh?" In fact, during the recount, some votes that were originally counted for Franken have been reassigned to Coleman, and vice versa (precinct by precinct results from the recount can be found here).
Additionally, shortly after Scarborough said Franken can win by "steal[ing]" votes, MSNBC analyst Pat Buchanan replied: "Look, you've got a station wagon up in the Iron Range that's hold -- got more of them in there, I'm sure, Joe." Later in the broadcast, Scarborough similarly said, "Buchanan says Al Franken can steal 130 votes easily. He said he can usually hide 130 votes in the back of a station wagon." Buchanan and Scarborough were echoing the widely discredited rumor that 32 absentee ballots from Minneapolis were mishandled in the course of being transported by car, an allegation that has been dismissed by both the Coleman campaign and Pawlenty.
Fritz Knaak, a lawyer for Coleman, reportedly said on November 8, "We were actually told [ballots] had been riding around in [Minneapolis director of elections Cynthia Reichert's] car for several days, which raised all kinds of integrity questions." However, the Associated Press reported that same day that Knaak "said a Minneapolis attorney reassured Coleman's campaign that no one but an elected official had access to the 32 ballots and there was no tampering." On November 10, Knaak reportedly said of the purported incident, "It does not appear that there was any ballot-tampering, and that was our concern." Similarly, Pawlenty -- who also initially forwarded the car-ballot rumor -- said on the November 16 broadcast of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday that "[t]here's a news report in Minnesota that the ballot-in-the-trunk story has now been retracted, that it wasn't accurate."
From the November 21 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:
ANDREA MITCHELL (guest co-host): And in Minnesota, Republican Senator Norm Coleman's edge over Democrat Al Franken faded somewhat in the second day of a statewide recount. According to the secretary of state in Minnesota, Franken now trails Coleman by just 129 votes out of nearly 3 million cast.
SCARBOROUGH: All right, so, Pat Buchanan, Al Franken only needs to steal 130 more votes to win that thing, and you've got to be thinking, "That's child's play."
BUCHANAN: Look, you've got a station wagon up in the Iron Range that's hold -- got more of them in there, I'm sure, Joe.
MITCHELL: These are the good government guys in Minnesota. They don't work that way, you know --
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, these are the good government guys, but they're -- that all the votes that were mis -- miscast were all miscast for the same guy, huh? And again, Buchanan's thinking, "This is child play. I can steal 130 votes" --
MITCHELL: This is Michael -- now this is -
SCARBOROUGH: -- "by the time I went to get a beer."
MITCHELL: This is Walter Mondale country. These guys are reformers.
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, they are, reform -- whatever.
BUCHANAN: I can find those, easy, Joe.
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, 130's nothing. Nothing, nothing.
[...]
MITCHELL: And in Minnesota, Republican Senator Norm Coleman's edge over Democrat Al Franken faded somewhat in the second day of a statewide recount. According to Minnesota's secretary of state, Franken now trails by only 129 votes out of nearly 3 million cast.
SCARBOROUGH: All right. And Buchanan says Al Franken can steal 130 votes easily. He said he can --
MITCHELL: Out of the Iron Range.
SCARBOROUGH: -- usually hide 130 votes in the back of a station wagon.
According to these right wing idiots you'd think that Franken is in a room with all of the ballots counting them by himself.
I'm pretty sure that the process is out of the hands of the two candidates.
I think instead of a seven second delay, Scarborough should have a seven year delay.
Doris
You imply that Scarborough committed murder. Where is your proof? Where is your evidence? You would be one of the first to jump all over someone making the same cheap attack with no evidence against a dem, but I guess the rules change based only on party. If you are going to make a statment like that, lets see some proof. As for Senator Elect Franken.....thanks for the laugh. Only if he can create some more votes will that ever happen.
Uh...I think the lack of proof (particularly on Scarborough's part) was kinda the point of Doris' post, genius.
And...you do realize, of course, that Franken has already accumulated 40% of the votes he needs so far in the recount, and they've only just started.
It's still a little too early to call one way or the other. But the recount so far looks a LOT better for Franken than it does for Coleman.
54% of the ballots have been recounted.
Yes. See my post below.
Simply not true, with all the ballot challenges going on it will be determined in court. Coleman will lose and he knows it. Try to be accurate for a change Bruce.
Any time you believe I am not accurate, please post your rebuttal with documentation from a reputable news source and I will consider the evidence.
If you can post documentation that shows Coleman knows he is going to lose, I would be interested in reading that.
He didn't imply, he posed a question. Kinda like scarborough does all the time. Since you routinely defend every right winger who engages in this method I'm just assuming you apply that methodology equally to all who do so.
OK with you for Doris to proceed?
It's the Cavuto mark!
Yeah, he just spouts falsehoods. They had Sen. Shelby on before or after this segment and Scarborough kept praising him for being the only Senator who opposed the bailout bill that passed on Oct. 1. I guess by "only" he meant "one of 25".
Give a knucklehead a microphone...
Who knows what they'll start spouting.
Media Matters has rendered Joe nothing but an inept, babbling, fool.
You mean the MSNBC engineers couldn't find something in that 20 second buffer time to cover that up?
If ya haven't been watching, coleman's lead is shrinking like a lantern running out of fuel.
Which, of course, is why Repubs hate recounts...
Snoopy, the fact of the matter is that they have recounted over 50% of the ballots and Franken has made up less than 50% of his deficit. He will not make up the required vote deficit at this pace.
Sorry bruce, but there are already near 700 votes total that are under challenge. There will most likely be 1500+ votes that will have to go in front of the certification council even after the recount. It's gonna come down to a 5 person council who review those 1500 votes.
And at the rate the recount is going - and the fact that the remaining counties lean democratic - I'd say don't count your turkeys before palin pardons them, champ! ;)
Coleman is challenging 573 and Franken is challenging 602 so far. That doesn't add up to anything significant either way.
Bruce, they are already at 1600 challenged votes and only 58% recount. Coleman's lead is just over 100 votes.
The MN SOS site puts the recount at 60.86% completed. It shows 1,525 challenged ballots, 778 challenged by Franken and 747 challenged by Coleman. That website doesn't show the overall effect on Coleman's lead. Where did you get the number? I haven't seen it posted yet on any of the local news websites.
Coleman is challenging any ballot where someone voted for McCain and Franken. Don't hold your breath for this to get a gotcha headline on Drudge or a metion on Morning Joe. http://www.thepersonalispolitical.com/2008/11/norm-coleman-desperate-to-hang-on-to.html
I was just reading about that. Maybe Coleman's group has crunched some numbers and it looks worse for him than I was estimating. That spin reeks of desperation.
That link you provided suggests something that is highly unlikely.
Approximately 2 million votes have been recounted. Obama won the state by about 10 points meaning McCain would have been selected on about 800 thousand ballots that have been recounted (40%). There has to be more McCain-Franken ballots than 747 which is what Coleman has challenged according to Bills above post. That would represent only 1/10th of 1% of those McCain ballots. It's not realistic to think the percentage of McCain-Franken ballots would be that low.
True. Franken has gained 40% of the votes he needs, with just over 50% of the votes counted. But correct me if I'm wrong...they haven't even gotten to some of the more "urban" precincts, where Franken has a clear demographic advantage.
Furthermore, there are two ethics lawsuits against Coleman. If he's found guilty between now and the New Year, he'll pretty much have to concede anyway. I admit it's a lame way for Franken to win, but with a race this close (less than 150 votes!) it's not like anyone can really complain. If Coleman wins the recount, it'll be by less than .01%, also known as "the skin of his teeth."
'Course...the Republicans will call it a "mandate" like they did in 2004 when Bush won by a similar margin. (Obama's margin is more than twice Bush's, and growing, but oh-no, we aren't calling that a "mandate" are we, MSM?)
A friend of mine is a blogger in Minnesota. He's got an interesting "just-the-facts" breakdown of the recount and MN's "voter intent" laws:
link
Hennepin County and Ramsey County were the two counties that strongly favored Franken. Those counties are currently 50% and 33% counted, respectively. The majority of the counties that have not yet started their recounting favor Coleman.
http://ww2.startribune.com/news/metro/elections/returns/2008/recount/msenco.html
I'm afraid that bruce1ace may be right about Franken's chances. Some of the first counties that were recounted were Democratic strongholds with old ballot tabulators that were thought to be more susceptible to missing votes. From what I'd read before the recount began I thought Franken might gain more votes than he has from those early counties. Unless Franken's challenges are much better than Coleman's (and I think they're both using close to the same standards) Franken will probably fall short. Still, it could easily fall within a few dozen votes and there could be some surprises in remaining precincts. And whichever one wins will only have claimed about 42% of the total vote.
At least Coleman has admitted that his claim of victory the day after the election was a jackass thing to say. Not his words, but it captures the meaning.
All excellent points.
However, regardless of the outcome, it's absolutely absurd and unconscionable for the right-wing media to accuse Franken of "stealing" votes.
No argument here. There is nothing to indicate Franken is stealing any votes. There are no suspicious votes turning up or large swings. And still, the partisan haters don't need that kind of evidence in order to level that charge at him. It's sick how often that charge gets thrown out in forums.
Snoopy, the fact of the matter is that they have recounted over 50% of the ballots and Franken has made up less than 50% of his deficit. He will not make up the required vote deficit at this pace.
Nope. they're just starting to get to Franken counties now en masse. An inordinate number of these just-recounted votes were in Coleman country.
Plus, Franken is challenging absentee ballots in a disputed county where there were-- apparently-- demonstrated problems. He's not challenging other counties because there's no evidence of trouble in those.
He has a good chance.
Actually, he only challenged in Ramsey County for a few reasons. It's true there were a large number of absentee ballots there and it's a very strong Democratic county. However, it was also thought that if the Ramsey County courts went in his favor other counties would likely accept the ruling as policy. That appears to be the case. He won in Ramsey and other counties are going along.
All he was seeking was the right to contact those voters whose absentee ballots were rejected to help determine if they were rejected for valid reasons. If they were rejected in error the issue then might go back to court to see if originally rejected ballots can be restored as valid. The law is fuzzy on that matter and that court case is likely to be partisan and nasty, if it happens.
Notice how sure Scarborough & Buchanan are that Franken can steal a couple of hundred votes. That is because they know how easy it was for the RNC to steal hundreds of thousands of votes in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004. These old Republicans get a little cranky in the morning and it doesn't help that Joe's party of 1994 is dead. If Shuster had shown up, Joe would have blamed him. Minnesota's ultimate voter arbitration panel has 2 Reps, 2 Independents & 1 Democrat. Both sides have lots of lawyers and money from their respective parties and every vote is being reviewed by reps and dems. By the way, Minnesota has shown how important the paper trail is and other states should be looking at our example. This is how democracy is supposed to work in a close election.