Yes, We Take Requests

Over in this post, commenter PG asks a question:

Post request: could someone who has been following the MN Senate election and recount go through this WSJ editorial and explain what is fact, what is opinion, and what is on the level of the WSJ’s classic “isn’t it suspicious that so many people have died around Bill Clinton?” (MN recount edition: “isn’t it suspicious that most of the canvassing board’s decisions help Franken?”).

Sure thing! And since I live in Minnesota, that someone is me.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board is widely considered to be one of the most insane in existence, choosing in all cases to make arguments made not based on facts, but instead on crazed partisan interpretations of events that only Sean Hannity fans believe. Don’t get me wrong, a conservative editorial board is fine — take the Pioneer Press in Minnesota, at least until it goes under later this year. But the WSJ is not so much conservative as delusional, making arguments that have no basis in reality, at least any reality that most people are familiar with.

Yesterday’s case in point is this rambling anti-Minnesota diatribe, in which the Wall Street Journal declares that eeeevul Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has been stealing poor Norm Coleman’s senate seat from him:

Strange things keep happening in Minnesota, where the disputed recount in the Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken may be nearing a dubious outcome. Thanks to the machinations of Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and a meek state Canvassing Board, Mr. Franken may emerge as an illegitimate victor

Yes, Mark Ritchie has been a schemer! And he’s completely outschemed the canvassing board, which is made up of poor, pathetic creatures like:

• Minnesota Chief Justice Eric Magnusuon, an appointee and former law partner of Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Magnuson has drawn praise from pro-life groups and is known as a “lawyer’s lawyer.”
• Minnesota Associate Justice G. Barry Anderson, an appointee of Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is know in the state as a conservative stalwart.
• Ramsey County Chief Judge Kathleen Gearin, first elected in a non-partisan election in 1986, Gearin has been re-elected three times; she was promoted to Chief Judge in 2008 after serving as Associate Chief Judge for four years.
• Judge Edward J. Cleary, a Ramsey County judge appointed by Independence Party Gov. Jesse Ventura in 2002, he received the Graven Public Service Award from the Minnesota State Bar Association in 1998.

So, clearly, we have a bunch of weak-willed simpletons who are all willing to cave to an evil Secretary of State. It’s just too bad that Ritchie couldn’t have chosen someone who’d accomplished something in their lives, and of course, the fact that he appointed two Republicans, one Independent, and one Democrat to serve with him proves that he was out to fix things so only Franken could win.

Mr. Franken started the recount 215 votes behind Senator Coleman, but he now claims a 225-vote lead and suddenly the man who was insisting on “counting every vote” wants to shut the process down. He’s getting help from Mr. Ritchie and his four fellow Canvassing Board members, who have delivered inconsistent rulings and are ignoring glaring problems with the tallies.

Yes, if by “shutting the process down,” you mean, “Opposing a last-minute attempt to stuff the ballot box with 654 questionably selected absentee ballots that local officials say were properly rejected.” The Canvassing Board, meanwhile, has inconsistently ruled that they do not have the authority to require absentee ballots to be counted, that they do not have the authority to require absentee ballots to be counted, and that they do not have the authority to require absentee ballots to be counted. Crazy, weak-willed idiots.

Under Minnesota law, election officials are required to make a duplicate ballot if the original is damaged during Election Night counting. Officials are supposed to mark these as “duplicate” and segregate the original ballots. But it appears some officials may have failed to mark ballots as duplicates, which are now being counted in addition to the originals. This helps explain why more than 25 precincts now have more ballots than voters who signed in to vote. By some estimates this double counting has yielded Mr. Franken an additional 80 to 100 votes.

And by coincidence, those 25 precincts just happen to be DFL-leaning districts! Who knew?

Now, I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I’m sympathetic to this argument, if Coleman can present any actual evidence that there’s anything to it. But he hasn’t so far. And if he has evidence, now’s the time to show it. Instead, the Coleman campaign has theories, rumor, and innuendo, and they’ve yet to back any of this up with anything resembling facts.

This disenfranchises Minnesotans whose vote counted only once. And one Canvassing Board member, State Supreme Court Justice G. Barry Anderson, has acknowledged that “very likely there was a double counting.” Yet the board insists that it lacks the authority to question local officials and it is merely adding the inflated numbers to the totals.

This is, of course, because the board lacks that authority. The Minnesota Supreme Court agrees with that. Rule of law! Rule of law!

The rest of the editorial continues in that vein, raising the kind of detail-free arguments that would wow you if you only read Minnesota Democrats Exposed.  The missing ballots in Minneapolis get noted, while the fact that state law indicates missing hand ballots require a machine count to be used — and the fact that the missing ballots were clearly part of a series of envelopes — is ignored; the Supreme Court ruling on absentee ballots is decried, never mind that if Coleman had gotten his way, no absentee ballots would have been counted and Al Franken would have a secure 46-vote victory.

The WSJ muses:

The question is how the board can certify a fair and accurate election result given these multiple recount problems. Yet that is precisely what the five members seem prepared to do when they meet today. Some members seem to have concluded that because one of the candidates will challenge the result in any event, why not get on with it and leave it to the courts? Mr. Coleman will certainly have grounds to contest the result in court, but he’ll be at a disadvantage given that courts are understandably reluctant to overrule a certified outcome.

It couldn’t be that the Canvassing Board ran a fair, above-board process where votes were counted in public, where debate was open, and where most decisions were made unanimously, and that now what there are no ballots left to count, the board should conclude its deliberations. No, the board must just be lazy or something, and totally anti-Coleman.

It’s ridiculous, and it’s an insult to the thousands of Minnesotans, from all political parties, who have worked to make this recount fair. I disagree with Eric Magnuson and Barry Anderson, I suspect, on almost everything. But both men have conducted themselves with honor and dignity, and both men put the interests of their state first in this process. Both men are Republicans, but so what? They weren’t trying to steal the race for Coleman or Franken. They were just trying to do what judges do — rule fairly on tough questions.

In the end, Minnesotans can be justifiably proud of this recount — unfortunately, Norm Coleman and his allies seem wiling to replace that pride with shame, if that helps them win. They do this based on nothing more than a desire to win at all costs. And that is shameful.