Fox's John Lott uses Strib error to try and prove liberal conspiracy
Categories: Franken vs. Coleman
Yesterday we reported on the groundbreaking analysis by John Lott from Fox News. His main point was to show the "ballot madness" in Minnesota where he claimed the state Canvassing Board was making decisions on ballots to purposefully benefit Al Franken and "steal" votes from Norm Coleman.
Turns out the main evidence he used came from a small mistake in the Star Tribune's database of challenged ballots, FiveThirtyEight discovered. Whoops. Small Star Tribune error, big tumble for Fox News.
Lott claimed this ballot went to Franken, despite being clearly a vote for Coleman. A little fact checking would have done him some good. He received that information from a Star Tribune database of all challenged ballots, but a call to the campaigns shows that they both agree this ballot went to Coleman as it should have. FiveThirtyEight also provides the spreadsheet.
Will he still claim liberal conspiracy despite losing his best evidence? Of course.
UPDATE: Lott acknowledges the error on his Web site and corrected his piece to reflect it.
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