Thank you to the New York Times for setting the record straight–and for those who have been suckered by the right-wing b.s. about this, for god’s sake, do your homework. The ACORN issue is so obviously a nonstarter, particularly the Obama connection, and comes up every year that Republicans want to discredit the voters most likely to vote Democratic. A favourite from the Rove playbook. Voter registration fraud (and it’s not intentional “fraud,” since it’s not ACORN, but individuals hoping to make more money for their work, who add names to their lists) does not affect actual votes on voting day, whereas the Republican strategies of denying American citizens their right to vote, whether already registered or wanting to, should have resulted in many more people tossed in jail over the years. I’ve not seen evidence that the right is concerned with policing its own, and, I daresay, has been more than thrilled about the “irregularites” that favoured Team GOP in 2000 and 2004.
Acorn is a nonprofit group that advocates for low- and moderate-income people and has mounted a major voter-registration drive this year. Acorn says that it has paid more than 8,000 canvassers who have registered about 1.3 million new voters, many of them poor people and members of racial minorities.
In recent weeks, the McCain campaign has accused the group of perpetrating voter fraud by intentionally submitting invalid registration forms, including some with fictional names like Mickey Mouse and others for voters who are already registered.
Based on the information that has come to light so far, the charges appear to be wildly overblown — and intended to hobble Acorn’s efforts.
The group concedes that some of its hired canvassers have turned in tainted forms, although they say the ones with phony names constitute no more than 1 percent of the total turned in. The group also says it reviews all of the registration forms that come in. Before delivering the forms to elections offices, its supervisors flag any that appear to have problems.
According to Acorn, most of the forms that are now causing controversy are ones that it flagged and that unsympathetic election officials then publicized.
UPDATE: Oh, now I get it. ACORN is what the GOP uses as an excuse for its voter suppression tactics. Do you doubt it? In which case, may I refer you to the DOJ 2006 attorney general scandal, which took down Alberto Gonzales, where the torture issue (amazingly) hadn’t already.
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