NRSC Publishes Unapologetic, Shameless, Evidence-Free Conspiracy Theories After Democrats Opened Door for Them to do so
And, Again, We Offer Our help to ALL Parties in the Bargain...
By Brad Friedman on 11/12/2008, 3:33pm PT  

The Democrats, as usual, have only themselves to blame. But we're still happy to help both them and the Republicans if it means the voters might see their votes counted and counted accurately, no matter who will ultimately be declared the winner of any election. You're welcome, Republicans (and Democrats).

After years of Democrats refusing to use the f-word (fraud) or discussing concerns about the s-word (stolen) for elections, for fear of being declared conspiracy theorists and sore-losers by the Republicans, we'll note that Republicans have no such fears. They never did. And they are happy to don enormous and shiny tin-foil hats any time to claim any conspiracy they need to, regardless of the actual evidence (or lack thereof) to support their theory.

They will claim --- even at the highest official levels of their party --- that "Democrats are stealing the election," "stuff[ing] new ballots into the ballot box" and all other manner of unsubstantiated allegations, if they believe it might help their candidate "win." The voters be damned.

To that end, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has now gone so far as to set up a "Minnesota Recount" conspiracy theory blog. The site is devoted to the advancement of making and reposting unsubstantiated claims from around the wingnut 'sphere --- and that would include liar John Fund's Wall Street Journal --- that Al Franken and the Democrats are in the process of "stealing" the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota...

While the Republicans' outrageous claims are, obviously, a publicity ploy for the wingnut echo chamber --- which is starving for red meat to sate their ravenous claims of Democratic Voter Fraud Gone Wild --- given the electoral processes and systems in place, Democrats have opened the door to allow for such outrageous claims whether they have any actual merit (or even just the appearance of "merit") because they've spent so many years allowing for the Republican-backed loss-of-transparency-through-privatization of our voting systems, while otherwise utterly failing to stand up for themselves in one hinky election over the years after another.

Here's the kind of nonsense the NRSC, an official Republican Party body, mind you, has posted on their shameless new website...

[J]udging from the odd doings in Minnesota, some in their party wouldn’t mind adding to their jackpot by stealing a Senate seat for left-wing joker Al Franken.
...
Democrats have a political incentive to cut corners to steal a seat if they can get away with it.
...
Stealing Minnesota?
...
[I]t’s pretty clear the Democrats are stealing the election.
...
Minnesota Mischief
...
Joker Al Franken’s campaign tried to add votes to their tally that had already been disqualified.
...
Franken Tries To Steal The Election Again
...
The Al Franken campaign today tried to stuff new ballots into the ballot box in a brazen, last minute act of desperation.
...
The Franken campaign is running out of ways to steal the election. So they are flailing for lame mechanisms to do so.
...
MN Senate Race Being Hijacked?

Mind you, those are all actual quotes from actual blog items at the new Republican conspiracy theory site. They are not posts from commenters, but from officially sanctioned NRSC postings in light of just 206 votes --- out of some 3 million ballots cast in the state on November 4th --- which currently separate Franken from his Republican incumbent opponent, Sen. Norm Coleman, according to the state's officially reported results. A manual recount of the state's paper ballots --- which are currently tabulated on faulty optical-scan systems made by ES&S and Diebold --- is scheduled to begin November 19th.

The above quoted assertions from the NRSC conspiracy theory site are all stuff and nonsense, of course, but without real transparency in the electoral system, such that every party and every voter can have full confidence in the results of every election, the type of garbage seen above, from the shameless, unapologetic wingnuts, will likely be allowed to grab a foothold on the American conciousness.

Of course, it also helps that the Right similarly own the corporate media, which will be all too happy to echo the charges, substantiated or not, just as dutifully as they were willing to echo the GOP's ACORN "voter fraud" hoax in the days and weeks prior to the general election. And again, it's because the Dems have allowed unfettered corporate Republican control of the American media as much as they've allowed unfettered corporate Republican control of the American electoral system.

Nonetheless, there are a number of very specific points that we laid out over the weekend that the Republicans in MN would be as wise to take note of as Democrats. That article lays out, step by step, what can be done by all parties to try and ensure a transparent and accurate count of all of the ballots cast, in such way that any funny business --- by any party --- would be nearly impossible to pull off without getting noticed.

As we made clear at the time, in that article, election integrity is not about Republicans or Democrats. It's about ensuring that all legal voters who wish to vote actually get to vote and that all of those votes are counted and counted accurately, such that the candidate who receives the most of them actually wins, the winner needn't serve under a cloud of suspicion, and the loser and his/her supporters recognize beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were bested by their competition.

So, dear Republicans, go read that article. And, if you have the guts, or a shred of actual interest in a fair, accurate, and transparent outcome in MN's U.S. Senate election, and its upcoming recount, we give you our permission to run this article, in its entirety (and only in its entirety), on your MN conspiracy theory blog.

In fact, we both challenge you to do so and offer to help you if you have any questions about it all as we have been happy to do for other parties in other states, such as Alaska. We're pretty easy to contact in that regard...Even if we're not holding our breath that you will take any of our very well-meaning advice.

Obviously, it's far easier to put forward unsubstantiated conspiracy theories than it is to take actual action on behalf of your voters and all of the voters in Minnesota.

UPDATE 1/15/09: We're not precisely certain on what date they did so, but recently, the RSCC has removed the entire MinnesotaRecount.com site, replacing it with a notice which reads only:

Site Temporarily Unavailable

We apologize for the inconvenience. Please contact the webmaster/ tech support immediately to have them rectify this.

error id: "bad_httpd_conf"

UPDATE 4/16/09: As of today, several days since MN's 3-judge, bi-partisan election contest court's finding that "Franken received the highest number of lawfully cast ballots in the November 4, 2008 general election for United States Senator and is entitled to receive the certificate of election.", the RSCC's conspiracy theory website is still display as "Temporary Unavailable" as detailed in the update above.

As long promised, The BRAD BLOG has covered your electoral system 2008, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation to help us keep going. If you like, we'll send you some great, award-winning election integrity documentary films in return! Details on that right here...
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Article Categories: Election Irregularities, Election Fraud, Election 2008, Mainstream Media Failure, Accountability, Minnesota, RNC, Republicans, Al Franken