anyway, what did minnesota majority find? as the fox article explains
[Minnesota Majority's study] found that at least 341 convicted felons in largely Democratic Minneapolis-St. Paul voted illegally in the 2008 Senate race between Franken, a Democrat, and his Republican opponent, then-incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman.and from that fox reports that the election "may" have been stolen. which is technically correct, but in practice it's highly unlikely. even if we assume the minnesota majority's data is correct, they don't know who the felons voted for. in order for it to have affected the outcome, at least 91.5% the 341 felons who voted would have had to vote for franken and not coleman. a margin like that is extremely unlikely. there's almost no demographic that votes in such lopsided number (the only one i can think of us barack obama' share of the black vote in 2008).
The final recount vote in the race, determined six months after Election Day, showed Franken beat Coleman by 312 votes -- fewer votes than the number of felons whose illegal ballots were counted, according to Minnesota Majority's newly released study, which matched publicly available conviction lists with voting records.
so what the study supposedly found is that a few hundred people may have voted in the minnesota senate race that shouldn't have. but while it was more than franken's margin of victory it's pretty unlikely to have affected the outcome. and it's far more likely that coleman got a fair number of the votes. but of course fox's report has triggered the ditto heads on the right to jump to the opposite conclusion. dan @ wizbang claimed the study showed that "a number of felons voted illegally for Al Franken in the 2008 Minnestota Senate election" when all it actually showed is that they may have illegally voted. gateway pundit calls it "likely" that franken only won because of the felon's vote. it's only a matter of time before this study goes down in right blogistani lore as proof positive that the franken-coleman election was stolen.
UPDATE (7/13/10): right on schedule, the bright lights of right blogistan have sprung into action. closeted carol links to the fox story and acts as if that means the stolen election is an absolute certainty. paul cooper writing for david horowitz's NewsRealBlog claims the study "show[ed] that Franken received at least 341 counted votes by felons." and doug ross's snarky headline reads: "Study Confirms: Felons Illegal Aliens (aka Undocumented Democrats) and Zombies elected Al Franken to U.S. Senate." (thanks to memeorandum)
