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Notes -
Next time, include a source for the claim? I dug it up -
I read the wikipedia article, an incredibly boring use of 5 minutes of time (and reading the sources was worse...), and it ends with
"On March 31, the court issued an order to count at most 400 rejected absentee ballots and denied any other relief.[88][89] On April 7, the court scrutinized those ballots and determined that 351 had been legally cast. Those votes were counted, with 111 going to Coleman, 198 to Franken, and 42 to others, giving Franken a final margin of 312 votes.[90]"
You seem to refer to "In July 2010, Minnesota Majority, a conservative watchdog group, conducted a study in which it flagged 2,803 voters in the Senate race for examination, including 1,359 it suspected to be ineligible convicted felons in the largely Democratic Minneapolis-St. Paul area.[110][111] Subsequent investigations of Minnesota Majority's claims by election officials found that many of its allegations were incorrect. Some of the cases that were submitted involved mistaking a legal voter for a felon with the same name, others involved felons who had had their voting rights reinstated after serving their sentences, and others were felons who illegally registered to vote but did not vote in 2008 election.[112][113][114] Ramsey County officials narrowed their investigation to 180 cases, while Hennepin County examined 216 cases.[115]"
From the first source (fox news):
Added up, that's 342, which is slightly higher than 312. (although even if we believe that, if even 5% of the felons voted R, 342*.9 < 312). (although you could just as well argue plenty of the nonconclusive matches were 'real' too, whatever)
The star tribune confirms the 312 number, 'Ever since Franken won by a mere 312 votes', and
Unless most of those were confirmed, that still puts us under 312.
And (from kare11):
Those who are being charged with two felonies are felons who registered at the polling place on election day and voted, leaving no time for a cross-check with lists of convicts still on probation "We're going to continue to investigate 180 other complaints but we're not talking about a huge number of actual cases. And of that 30 about half of them were registration only, they didn't actually vote."
If we assume that cuts half of the 180 + 216, that puts us well under 312.
On the other hand, of course, dropping an investigation may be because it's impossible to prove, not because it didn't happen.
But
So - at a guess, these particular voters didn't tip it, but ... who knows.
However - these are right-wing claims. Did some R voters vote illegitimately, tipping the election rightwards? Idk, but from the wikipedia article, there were a number of recounts where both sides challenged vote counts, absentee ballot validity, et cetera - and in each of those, franken ended up with more extra votes than his opponent.
Obviously, both sides are very willing to play hard in the legal system, fighting tooth and nail, and care about the 'facts' only tangentially', and, more visibly so in more local races, sometimes commit outright fraud.
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