Limbaugh claims Franken "stole" MN Senate race, cites WSJ editorial to claim "[t]hey're counting votes twice"

Original Link: http://mediamatters.org/items/200901050016

Summary: Rush Limbaugh baselessly claimed that Democrat Al Franken "stole the race" for Minnesota's Senate seat and asserted that "The Wall Street Journal has a story on this. They're counting votes twice -- votes that were rejected, all kinds of things." However, the Journal "story" Limbaugh referred to was an editorial, which simply asserted that there was double counting -- echoing the accusation by the incumbent, Republican Norm Coleman -- and did not cite reporting to support its claim.

On the same day that the Minnesota Canvassing Board certified the results of the November 4 election, resulting in Democrat Al Franken's apparent victory in the state's U.S. Senate race by 225 votes, nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh baselessly claimed that Franken "stole the race" and asserted that "The Wall Street Journal has a story on this. They're counting votes twice -- votes that were rejected, all kinds of things." However, as Media Matters for America noted, the Journal "story" Limbaugh referred to was an editorial, which simply asserted that there was double counting, echoing the accusation by the incumbent, Republican Norm Coleman; it did not cite reporting to support its claim, only quoting State Supreme Court Justice G. Barry Anderson, a member of the canvassing board, who the Journal said "has acknowledged that 'very likely there was a double counting.' "

From the January 5 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

CALLER: Thanks, and many other of them. Hey, Rush, the reason I'm calling is when you started talking about Caroline Kennedy -- I'm starting to really get pissed off about a lot of different things going on here. And -- and, you know, we talk about Caroline Kennedy, we talk about Al Franken, and it's been building up for a while.

You talk about the Blago thing. You talk about everybody else. And what's really starting to frustrate me is the lack of accountability on the American electorate. We can't keep blaming Blago. We've gotta start blaming the people that are putting these people in office, and start holding us to accountability. And that's what has me frustrated. It hasn't been talked about a lot. And Rush, I tell you, you've told me one thing that I've always held to heart.

LIMBAUGH: Yes.

CALLER: Is you said you always have faith -- always have faith in the American people.

LIMBAUGH: I do.

CALLER: And I -- and I'm trying to believe in that. But we keep electing -- we keep electing these officials, and help me dissect that.

LIMBAUGH: We did not elect Al Franken. He stole the race. They are stealing the race up there blind in front of everybody's nose. They are counting absentee ballots. The Wall Street Journal has a story on this. They're counting votes twice -- votes that were rejected, all kinds of things. That's just -- the Democrats are stealing the election up there. The Democrats run Illinois and Chicago. Of course they elected Blago and Obama and everybody else. That is -- that's not gonna change.

—D.C.P.