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.