Oh, this is rich. For years, Republicans in many states (though Florida seems to be the champ here) try their damnedest to purge Democrats from the voter rolls by creating inflated “felon” lists, taking in anyone who has a name similar to convicted felons, an act which targets a large number of minority voters who are non-felons. When Democrats protest, Republicans deride them for courting“the felon vote” or “the criminal vote.”

Well, guess what? Norm Coleman, in Minnesota, is pushing and pushing hard for the vote of a prisoner’s absentee ballot to be counted. While it’s true that the man was not a convicted felon at the time and he was given the wrong type of absentee ballot in jail, the smear against Democrats is applied for courting the votes of people who never even committed a crime. And here’s a Republican wanting the jailhouse vote, even when technically the vote was invalid. Key point: were Al Franken to court this voter, Republicans would explode in a fit of ridicule and scorn at those criminal-loving Democrats.