Franken falsely accuses Coulter of misrepresenting ballot count source.

Franken falsely accuses Ann Coulter of having “totally misrepresented” a source.

On page 118… she writes that when the media consortium study on the 2000 Florida vote was released, it showed “that Bush had won on any count.” But the Washington Post story she cites says that the “Study Finds Gore Might Have Won Statewide Tally of All Uncounted Ballots.” The reason there are so many capital letters in that quote is that it is from the headline of the story.

Then Franken says:

Don’t you go to hell for this stuff?

Of course, Franken is lying.  The story cited by Coulter was a legitimate source for her claim. Bush would have won all the counts, according to the study–which Franken was able to twist because the study also looks at the hypothetical question of who would have a higher “tally” of the ballots that don’t count. Those ballots, of course, do not have a role to play in any of the counts, which explains why they are uncounted. It would be illegal to count them. There is a vote for more than one candidate for the office on the ballot, so there is no way to discern the intent of the voter.

Franken’s deception works because the word “uncounted” seems to imply the ballots are legitimate, waiting in line for their turn to be counted. In reality, they are like foul balls in Baseball. Some fouls are inches away from counting as home runs, but are not. A hypothetical tally is irrelevant to a count. As soon as we open the hypothetical door, a flood of questions arise; like how many people in the conservative Florida panhandle would have voted if the news media hadn’t called the state before the polls closed in their time zone.

All we can do is take the successfully cast ballots from people who successfully registered and made it to the polls–then count those ballots.

Moreover, the astute observer would note that the quote Franken gave is only “from” the headline. Franken only quoted the last part of the headline. Tricky. The complete headline reads:

Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush; But Study Finds Gore Might Have Won Statewide Tally of All Uncounted Ballots.

Franken totally misrepresented the source to accuse Coulter of “totally” misrepresenting the source.