Reality Check: Is The Election Rigged?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Donald Trump this week is repeatedly warning supporters the election may be "stolen" from him.
And one of the fraud examples his supporters are using: Minnesota. Trump surrogates say Minnesota Democratic Senator Al Franken may have been elected with illegal votes.
"In 2008, Al Franken won by 312 votes, giving the Senate Democrats a veto proof majority in the Senate," said Amy Kremer, co-chair of Women Vote Trump, on CNN. "And come to find out: 1,099 felons voted in that election. And since that time, 177 people have been convicted!"
There's no evidence to support what Kremer says, and she repeated it later on the broadcast.
"Al Franken in Minnesota. One hundred seventy seven people have been convicted of voter fraud," she said.
The numbers are not accurate.
They appear to be from a pair of studies by the conservative group "Minnesota Majority," which reported that 451 convicted felons voted in the Franken election. But it used names of voters with no proof of convictions, felons who registered but did not vote and some who had their voting rights restored.
An investigation by the Minnesota County Attorneys Association found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the Franken race. Al Franken won the Minnesota Senate race by 312 votes, after a six-month recount and a court battle that went all the way up to the Supreme Court.
At no point was there a finding of election fraud.
The Minnesota County Attorney's Association reports that 2,921,498 Minnesotans voted in 2008. Only 26 voters were convicted of felon registration or voting illegally. That's nine-ten thousandth of one per cent, or 0.0089 percent of voters.
Here are some of the sources we used for this Reality Check:
Minnesota Majority Felony Conviction Report
Minnesota Majority: The Case for Investigation and Reform
Minnesota County Attorneys Report: Facts About Ineligible Voting and Voter Fraud
