ACORN

You may have noticed, I’ve been pretty silent on here the last week or so. As long time readers will recall, I tend to go through phases. I get a lot of energy for things political, and then I get tired and need a break. I guess I’m sort of in a break right now, but there’s one story that I’ve followed and I decided I need to comment on: The whole ACORN "voter fraud" story.

There is a lot that’s been written on this, but I just wanted to throw out a few important bullet points to counteract the whole tizzy that’s going on.

First, understand that this isn’t voter fraud, this is voter REGISTRATION fraud. The whole story is that ACORN employees are defrauding ACORN, because they are paid by the number of registrations they (the employees) turn in. So ACORN is paying people for fraudulent registrations that in virtually every case will never be used. It’s not that there’s someone who is going to show up and try to vote as “Mickey Mouse”, it’s that ACORN paid someone for that registration, even though no such person will ever show up to vote. Also, the one case that has been pointed out many times, where one gentleman registered something like 50 times under his own name and address… that’s going to get him exactly ONE vote. ACORN was cheated out of 49 registration payments, but there will only be ONE registration when that man comes in to vote.

Second, people are pointing at ACORN as the source of the problem, but they are the ones who pointed out the problem. The law requires that any group that takes voter registrations turn in ALL of them. This is to prevent groups from going out, registering a lot of people, and then only turning in the ones for the party they support and leaving the other people thinking they’re registered but in fact showing up on election day and being unable to vote. So ACORN turned in all of the registration forms and flagged the ones they felt were fraudulent. ACORN did not try to defraud anyone, they merely complied with the law, while taking the additional step of telling the states which forms they considered to be questionable. The process worked.

Third, this is being used to attempt to justify "picture identification" laws, but here’s the scoop: It’s already, so I’ve read, federally mandated that if you do not register in person at your local government office (at which time you’d have to show ID), then when you go to vote you have to show ID. So all of these questionable registrations will already have to show ID when they go to vote.

Fourth, this isn’t a new story, ACORN has been registering people to vote since the primaries and has been flagging the registrations they felt were questionable all that time. However, now it makes a good story because it looks like a last minute thing. I’m virtually certain this is coming out now because McCain is so far behind in the polls. It’s being used to justify massive (and in some cases illegal) purges of the voter rolls and general voter suppression techniques, all ostensibly in the name of combating voter fraud but in fact aimed at suppressing poor and minority voting, since it will predominantly go to Obama.

Fifth, John McCain has been a supporter of ACORN until just recently, speaking at their events and praising them for their great work on behalf of the nation. But then, McCain has changed so many positions this election cycle that this should hardly surprise anyone.

So just remember all of these facts when someone starts saying "Booga booga, scary bogeyman voter fraud ACORN. Booga booga!" The facts do not support VOTER fraud, but VOTER REGISTRATION fraud. The facts do not support these registrations actually passing into the voter rolls, but that ACORN is being defrauded by some of its agents.

And the facts to not justify these wholesale voter challenges and voting roll purges which are going on, those are not legitimate, they are an attempt to remove as many Obama supporters from the rolls as possible, while claiming that any such legitimate voters who were thus removed were "unintended consequences."

They are intended consequences.

For anyone who is interested in more information on this, I've heard (although I've not been there to verify) that you can find a lot of information on this at the Brad Blog (also a good source of information about voter fraud in general and specifically the continuing problems with electronic voting machines).

Liam.

P.S. If you want to make sure that you have not been purged from the voter rolls in your state, go to votersunite.org and click on the "Are YOU Registered to Vote?" link on the right hand side, it will tell you how to verify in your home state.