Hours after the Minnesota Canvassing Board certified the recount in the state's U.S. Senate race, showing Al Franken finishing 225 votes ahead of incumbent Republican Norm Coleman, syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor Dick Morris baselessly claimed of the election that Franken and the Democrats are “stealing it right in front of our eyes” and asserted that both disputed ballots and their duplicates were counted, resulting in votes being counted “twice.” Discussing the race on the January 5 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Morris and co-host Sean Hannity echoed claims made in a Wall Street Journal editorial that day, alleging double counting of duplicate ballots during the recount. As Media Matters for America noted, the editorial simply asserted that there was double counting, echoing an accusation by the Coleman campaign; it did not cite reporting to support its claim.

Morris and Hannity also echoed the Wall Street Journal editorial in claiming that “177 more ballots than people voted” were counted in Ramsey County. In fact, according to a December 14 article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which cited a city clerk explaining human and technological errors in the voting process, a “machine jammed in Maplewood, resulting in 177 ballots going uncounted until the final day of the recount in Ramsey County.”

Media Matters further documented radio host Rush Limbaugh and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough also echoing the Journal editorial's unsubstantiated claims during their January 5 broadcasts.

From the January 5 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

HANNITY: Here's what we have. We've got 25 precincts in Minnesota -- 25, ladies and gentlemen -- 25 where there were more, believe it or not, ballots than voters who signed in to vote. Now, we can take it a step further. Even the state Supreme Court Justice Barry Anderson, on the canvassing board, said it's very likely that there was double counting. We've got one county -- ended up with 177 more ballots.

MORRIS: Yeah, Ramsey County -- 177 more ballots than people voted.

HANNITY: Yeah.

MORRIS: Duh.

HANNITY: So, how is it possible that they can come to this conclusion?

MORRIS: Well, what they did was that whenever there was a ballot that was in dispute, they copied it. But they forgot to put “duplicate” on it, so they not only counted the disputed ballot --

HANNITY: Twice.

MORRIS: -- they counted it twice.

HANNITY: Great for Franken. All right, do we have a problem with [Illinois Gov. Rod] Blagojevich choosing [Roland] Burris, considering --

MORRIS: No, but --

HANNITY: -- he hasn't been indicted?

MORRIS: -- but stay on Minnesota. There should be a special election.

HANNITY: You've got 30 seconds, so --

MORRIS: But stay on Minnesota. DickMorris.com, you can link to the law committee that is litigating this, and if we let them get away with the stuff they're pulling in Minnesota --

HANNITY: They're stealing this election.

MORRIS: They're stealing it right in front of our eyes.

HANNITY: Right in front of everybody's eyes.

MORRIS: And by the way, Minnesota law says you can't --

HANNITY: Could you imagine a --

MORRIS: You can't certify an election if the other party opposes it.

HANNITY: So they can't do it.

MORRIS: So a legal suit could stop this.

HANNITY: Well, it's supposed to happen tomorrow. Dick --

MORRIS: But, you know, we're not George Soros, so --

HANNITY: Congrats. Nineteen weeks in a row --

MORRIS: -- can't write a check.

HANNITY: -- for crying out loud, that book.

MORRIS: Thank you.

HANNITY: It just never goes away. Nineteen -- anyway, coming up next, Ann Coulter, brand-new book, just out today.

MORRIS: A great book.

HANNITY: She's under fire. She'll join us.

MORRIS: A great, great book, by the way.