Al Franken -- liar, liar, pants on fire

The recount will begin next week in Minnesota in the race for Norm Coleman's seat in the Senate. Coleman leads Franken by about 200 votes or so, and Franken is doing just about anything to steal the election away from Coleman including a demand that all the undervotes be given to him. But Franken has now decided to run a sob story about a woman whose vote was supposedly rejected for a signature discrepancy. The problem is the story is false. From John at PowerLine:

The centerpiece of Franken's Ramsey County lawsuit was a sob story involving an 84-year-old Beltrami County woman whose ballot was supposedly rejected because her signature did not match the one on file with the county. The reason, Franken alleged, was that the woman had suffered a stroke:

An 84-year-old Beltrami County woman, whose election ballot was rejected, helped convince Al Franken's campaign to go to court seeking the names of all Minnesotans whose ballots were not counted last week.

Franken campaign officials said the woman, a nursing home resident, told a campaign volunteer that her signature had changed due to a stroke after she first signed her voter registration forms.

Her signature on absentee ballot paperwork did not match her signature for this election, so election officials rejected the ballot.

That example is being used as why the U.S. Senate candidate, a Democrat, wants to know about every rejected ballot.

There's only one problem with Franken's story. It isn't true:

Al Franken's campaign needs a new story to establish the need for a lawsuit it filed Thursday. ...

A touching story the Franken campaign told at mid-day Thursday about how a Beltrami County women's stroke-impaired signature led to her ballot being rejected proved flawed. ...

The woman's story was carried by news organizations in Minnesota and beyond.

Franken's U.S. Senate campaign originally said an 84-year-old Beltrami County woman's post-stroke handwriting did not match her voter registration signature, so election officials rejected her ballot.

The county's top elections official said she told the Franken campaign that was not the case.

"Beltrami County does not have one ballot that was rejected because signatures didn't match and the Franken campaign was clearly told that," County Auditor-Treasurer Kay Mack said. "I don't know where they are getting that from."

So it appears that Franken deliberately lied.

Franken is lying and cheating to win this election. He's a petty little thug and a tax cheat to boot. The courts need to stop Franken now, and do it hard so Franken stops this nonsense. They can't allow this POS to "win" an election he's already clearly lost. The guys at PowerLine have been doing yeoman's work keeping up with the shady shenanigans that Franken has been pulling in Minnesota in an effort to cheat Coleman out of his Seante seat.

This is the sort of behavior that Franken would bring to the Senate if he actually stole this election. You don't have to search far to find his thuggish antics on the Internet. Captain Ed, the guys at PowerLine, and even Michelle Malkin have documented his angry insanity. His demands to serve with those that will check the ballots in the recount should be denied, and if he continues this, the court needs to slap him with a gag order until the recount is complete. If he violates it, then they need to hold him in contempt, and lock him up until the recount is done, and that goes for members of his campaign, as well.

Publius II