From John McCain on down, Republicans are accusing a community group of engaging in massive voter fraud. But the charges levied against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now largely appear overwrought.
McCain went over the top in his debate Wednesday night with Barack Obama, stating that ACORN “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.”
McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, said in a fundraising letter, “We can’t allow leftist groups like ACORN to steal this election.”
Hold on. Let’s look at the facts. The single most important one: Voter registration fraud — where bogus names, addresses or signatures of potential voters are submitted to election authorities — is far different from actual voter fraud, where unqualified people show up and try to vote.
Voter fraud is fortunately rare. In Missouri, reports by the last two secretaries of state — Democrat Robin Carnahan and Republican Matt Blunt — said elections this decade have been free of that problem.
In 2008, vigilant election officials in Missouri and other states are doing their jobs to prevent voter fraud.
They are checking voter registration forms turned in by ACORN, and by millions of Americans hoping to vote this November. When suspicious or false information shows up, the authorities are putting those registrations aside or tossing them out.
This is a time-consuming task and Republicans are correct to point that out. Various legal officials, including FBI personnel, are investigating potential voter registration fraud connected to ACORN workers in about 15 states, including Missouri.
ACORN is not blameless. It concedes some of the 13,000 people it paid to collect signatures faked names to collect more money.
However, the group has flagged many of these names for authorities to check out, while turning in all the signature cards it collects, as is often required by various state laws. And ACORN has stated it will cooperate with investigations of its workers.
So why all the caterwauling from Republicans? The most salient point is that ACORN has registered more than 1.3 million voters this election cycle.
Of course many of these people are in demographic groups — minorities, and lower- and middle-income Americans — who tend to vote for Democrats. And many of these people are ready to vote for change, likely adding to Obama’s totals.
That would go a long way toward explaining the GOP’s frenetic attacks on ACORN.
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THIS JUST IN. VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD IS REAL AFTER ALL!
Link to the whole story:Fox News Voter Fraud Report
FOX NEWS REPORTS:
Yes, it's true! And this one seems legit, unlike the stupid ACORN scare tactics... Read on.
Acorn has been accused of what? Of having some of their employees LIE about registrations and bilk the company of money. Hardly a dark conspiracy. But Republicans? Of course once again we have "wide stance" (wink wink) hypocrites doing worse than they accuse the Democratic party of doing.
Jacoby allegedly registered himself at his childhood home in Los Angeles, even though he no longer lives there. It is voter fraud to register if ineligible and perjury to provide false information on a voter registration card. Jacoby was charged with two counts of each relating to his 2006 and 2007 registration.
"Voter registration fraud is a serious issue, which is why I vigorously investigate all allegations of elections fraud," said Bowen, California's chief elections officer. "Where there's a case to be made, I will forward it to law enforcement for criminal prosecution."
An arraignment date has not been scheduled yet. Bail was set at $50,000.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Jacoby's firm was paid $7 to $12 by the CRP for each GOP voter registration signature, but dozens of voters who signed on said they were duped into registering as Republicans and thought they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters.
WHERE DID ACORN USE SUCH TACTICS? NEVER DID. WHICH ONE IS REPORTED MORE? GUESS.
Acorn, acorn, acorn - what a horrible group
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fraud20-2008oct20,0,3842357.story
That's funny
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fraud20-2008oct20,0,3842357.story
I think some of this bears quoting here. I know some people are too lazy to click. (I am looking at you, neocons)...
Jacoby's arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department comes after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by his firm, Young Political Majors, or YPM. The voters said YPM tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters. The firm was paid $7 to $12 for every Californian it registered as a member of the GOP.
I want to point out a couple of things that may not be obvious. Yeah it was Republican hypocrisy. We all know about that already.
The interesting thing here is that THEY WERE PAID BY THE REGISTRATION. ACORN pays their workers an hourly wage. This system that YPM set up was bound to lead to fraud.
WHODATHUNKIT? Republicans are guilty of WORSE things than they are accusing ACORN of doing! Holy crap! That NEVER happens! LMAO!
Why not just dive in and call ACORN criticism voter supression
Come on, Yael.
After more than a decade of election cycles where the by-product of whatever actual new registrations are turned in are hundreds of thousands of bogus forms dumped into the system at the last possible minute, choking our notoriously underfunded and undermanned election authorities with the burden of weeding them out, even you should be tired of the public vandalism going on in the name of high purpose.
Is the least little bit of efficiency after all these years and a bit more working inside the lines too much to ask? You'd never put up with this performance from a public agency and, let's face it, ACORN isn't far removed from the public trough as it is.
Hysterical Fears About Voter Registration? You Betcha!
Bogus "Voter Fraud Charges" Aim to Camouflage Voter Suppression
October 10, 2008
ACORN has just completed the largest, most successful nonpartisan voter registration drive in U.S. history. We helped 1.3 million low-income, minority and young voters across the country register to vote.
Unfortunately, just as in 2006, that success in bringing people into the democratic process, have been greeted with unfounded accusations to disparage our work and help maintain the status quo of an unbalanced electorate.
After a similar spate of charges against ACORN in 2006, we learned that then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had fired Republican U.S. Attorneys because they refused to prosecute ACORN and other voter assistance groups on trumped up fraud charges. This was the heart of the U.S. Attorney-gate scandal that led Karl Rove, Gonzales and other top Department of Justice officials to resign. Because the press didn’t catch on until long after the election, it was part of a successful strategy to create an unfounded specter of voter fraud and to suppress voting.
Key Facts:
1. In order to help 1.3 million people register to vote, we hired more than 13,000 registration assistance workers. As with any business or agency that operates at this scale, there are always some people who want to get paid without really doing the job, or who aim to defraud their employer. Any large department store will have some workers who shoplift.
2. Any large voter registration operation will have a small percentage of workers who turn in bogus registration forms, Their goal clearly is not to cast a fraudulent vote. It is simply to defraud their employer, ACORN, by getting a paycheck without earning it. ACORN is the victim of this fraud – not the perpetrator.
3. In nearly every case that has been reported , it was ACORN that discovered the bad forms, and called them to the attention of election authorities, putting the forms in a package that identified them in writing as suspicious, encouraging election officials to investigate, and offering to help with prosecutions. We are required by law to turn in all forms, but instead of just turning them in and figuring that it is the responsibility of the board of elections to figure out which are valid, we spend millions of dollars verifying that forms are valid, and then separate out those that are suspicious.
4. This has nothing to do with “voter fraud” – nothing at all to do with anyone trying to cast an extra vote. There has never been a single reported instance in which bogus registration forms have led to anyone voting improperly. To do that, they would have to show up at the polls, prove their identity as all first-time registrants must, and risk jail. The people who turned in these forms did so not because they wanted an extra vote, but because they didn’t care enough to make sure eligible people got to vote at all.
5. When a department store calls the police to report a shoplifting employee, no one says the department store is guilty of consumer fraud. But for some reason, when ACORN turns voter registration workers over to the authorities for filling out bogus forms, it gets accused of “voter fraud.” This is a classic case of blaming the victim; indeed, these charges are outrageous, libelous, and often politically motivated.
6. Similar attacks were launched against ACORN and other voter registration organizations in 2004 and 2006. The bogus charges were at the heart of the U.S. Attorney-gate scandal that led to the resignations of Karl Rove, Attorney General Ablerto Gonzales and other top Justice Department Officials. It turned out that it was the charges that were fraudulent, and that they were part of a systematic partisan agenda of voter suppression. Republican U.S. Attorneys David Iglesias (NM), Todd Graves (MO), and John McKay (WA) all were fired primarily because they refused to prosecute similar bogus charges of “voter fraud.” Another U.S. Attorney, Bradley Schlozman, who did politicize prosecutions against former ACORN canvassers, was forced to acknowledge under cross examination by the Senate Judiciary Committee that ACORN was the victim of fraud by its employees and ACORN had caught the employees and had identified them to law enforcement.
7. The goals of the people orchestrating these attacks are to distract ACORN from helping people vote and to justify massive voter suppression. That’s the real voter fraud; the noise about a small fraction of the forms ACORN has turned in is meant to get the press and public take their eyes off the real threat, while those hurling the charges are stealing people’s right to vote in broad daylight. They have already tried to prevent Ohio from registering voters at its early voting sites. In Michigan, they planned to use foreclosure notices to challenge thousands of voters. And if this year is like past years, they are preparing to use this so-called voter fraud to justify massive challenges to voters in minority precincts on Election Day.
The Details:
Fact: ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control system in the voter engagement field but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic.
Fact: ACORN flags in writing incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in,. Unfortunately, some of these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards. In many cases, we can actually prove that these are the same cards we called to their attention.
Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card . ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the cases where our internal quality controls have identified this happening we have fired the workers involved and turned them in to election officials and law-enforcement.
Fact: No criminal charges related to voter registration have ever been brought against ACORN or partner organizations. Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained through our quality control and verification processes — evidence which in most cases WE called to the attention of authorities
Fact: Most election officials have recognized ACORN’s good work and praised our quality control systems. Even in the cities where election officials have complained about ACORN, the applications in question represent less than 1% of the thousands and thousands of registrations ACORN has collected.
Fact: Our accusers not only fail to provide any evidence, they fail to suggest a motive: there is virtually no chance anyone would be able to vote fraudulently, so there is no reason to deliberately submit phony registrations. ACORN is committed to ensuring that the greatest possible numbers of people are registered
ACORN will not be intimidated, we will not be provoked, and in this important moment in history we will not allow anyone to distract us from these vital efforts to empower our constituencies and our communities to speak for themselves.
From the Oct 10th ACORN Press Release
Why don't Republicans worry about voter intimidation and vote suppression? These are real. Why are some people so hysterical about the boogey monster of ACORN? It's pathetic to see posts on this forum that are so knee-jerk with no data behind them. If anything, it makes us look like dimwitted "flyoverland" hicks for sure.
Alphabet you are an idiot...
or so blinded by your hatred of the Republican Party you can't even reason. Can you guarantee me, or any other citizen that not one of these hundreds of thousands of registrants has never voted? Please. 200,000 questionable registrations are held now the Sy of State in Ohio, all "registered" by ACORN.
ACORN is now under FBI investigation in 15 states.
Please try and pedal your horse dung about how "innocent" this bunch of crooks are somewhere else. It ain't gonna fly here in flyover country.
A turd is still a turd, no matter how much you try to polish it Alphabet.
This ACORN "Much ado" is about one thing......
Voter Intimidation and suppression.
The GOP has become the Party of Jackbooted thugs and Brown shirts.
Mussolini would be proud!