Over at Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall offers a great summary on the whole ACORN fiasco that’s got Republicans seething. The allegation is that ACORN, a shadowy organization backing Obama (another community organizer!) is backing a massive voter fraud effort, to cast fake votes and therefore steal the election away in key swing states from McCain.
In short: ACORN is a program committed to increasing voter registration, particularly those in low-income and minority neighborhoods. The program doesn’t rely on volunteers; they provide work and income for people who need the money. Since the workers are paid per number of registrations turned in, there is an incentive to turn in fake registrations. And some do.
In many states, voter registrants are required by law to turn in every single registration form they receive to county clerk offices. ACORN will sift through the forms turned in by their workers, and try to flag obvious fake registrations. But they still have to turn in every form they get.
Perhaps they should refine their methods. After all, ACORN is the organization getting ripped off, paying workers for registrations that don’t exist. The bottom line is that there has never been any evidence to demonstrate that these fake registrations will result in actual voter fraud. Logistically, it’s just not feasible – you have to round up enough individuals to show up at the polls, presenting fake names (and fake IDs), and even if you managed to do that, there’s no guarantee that these voter mercenaries will even vote for your candidate. If you were going to commit voter fraud on a scale massive enough to sway an election, far easier and more efficient to hack a Diebold machine.
In fact, remember all those Bush-appointed attorneys that were wrongfully fired? It was because they couldn’t find or would not fake this evidence.
Post a Comment