So much is suspicious in the Minnesota Senate recount that it is hard to know where to begin. Worse, the recount controversy is symptomatic of a larger problem that plagues American elections generally. For whatever reason, the simple task of casting and counting votes has been turned an occasion for confusion, mischief, and outright fraud. The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund brilliantly demonstrated this sad fact in his 2008 book, “Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy.” Reformers ought to make it required reading.
But let’s concentrate on Minnesota. The Journal earlier this week amply demonstrated how every single decision during the recount battle has favored comedian Al Franken, the Democratic challenger of incumbent Republican Norm Coleman. The anomalies include inconsistent standards for judging disputed ballots; apparent double-counting of some ballots; ballots mysteriously “discovered” after the fact; and wildly differing treatment of separate groups of absentee ballots that were, allegedly, rejected by mistake.
The Minnesota courts, though, will do whatever they will do. What needs at least as much attention is whether or not Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was an honest broker during the recount. Ritchie already merited a watchful eye because of his long affiliation with the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) that is being investigated in connection with vote fraud allegations in more than a dozen states. Yet Scott Johnson, a Minnesotan who is a founding writer of the widely respected Power Line blog, has made a credible case that Ritchie collaborated closely with the Franken campaign.
Johnson has filed a freedom-of-information request with Ritchie’s office to expose Ritchie’s communications with the Franken team. If, as Johnson suspects, Ritchie was giving back-channel assurances to the Franken team, it makes all the other anomalies look less like human error and more like a nefarious plot. Johnson’s FOIA request ought to be granted fully and with dispatch. Indeed, the Minnesota courts and law enforcement officials should insist that fulfilling the request be expedited and the results made public before making any final ruling to certify the election. If the man overseeing the contest, including the controversial recount process, was helping to weigh the ballots in Franken’s favor, then the legitimacy of the whole election could be in doubt. The Senate should seat neither candidate until these questions are resolved.
