Much has been made of the Democrats 50 state strategy to win the election. Who knew there was a fall back 15 state strategy to steal it if they couldn’t win it?
Americans who haven’t heard about ACORN and voter fraud haven’t been paying attention. Some have been hearing about it for years. Others are just now hearing after waking up to find elections upon us once again. Seems like every couple of years there’s an election and whenever there is, there’s talk about people trying to steal it.
This year is no different. But for the first time, the fraud seems massive and everywhere. And most all the fingers are pointing at ACORN. They are political activists, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. According to Wikipedia, ACORN ” … is a community-based organization that advocates for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, health care and other social issues.” Wikipedia has frozen further edits to ACORN’s page because people can’t agree; according to others, ACORN is a Liberal group committed to electing Democrats by any means possible, legal and illegal.
Prior to 2008, while ACORN was a player in terms of voter fraud, there wasn’t much to report. My first memory is South Dakota from 2002. This year ACORN is under scrutiny in over a fourth of America’s 50 states.
According to the New York Post and numerous other sources, 15 states are looking into ACORN for possible voter fraud. There’s just one problem, I can’t find 15 from this election cycle. I can only find 13! I looked but no one reporting the 15 state figure backed it up. A bit of light was shed when I found a comment making the tally 15 “since 2004″. Not quite the felonious total first reported, but why quibble over a couple of states. A count of 13 still means in 2/3 of the states in which ACORN ran registration drives this cycle, there were problems. If anyone knows the other two states, let me know and I’ll issue an update. If problems turn up in any of other states, let me know as well.
The 13 instances noted below are all from this election cycle. All but the Washington case are from 2008.
Connecticut – falsifying/forging voter registration cards;
Florida – falsifying voter registration;
Indiana – falsifying/forging voter registration cards;
Michigan – dozens of fraudulent forms;
Missouri – falsifying voter registration applications;
Nevada – fraudulent registrations including two for Tony Romo and Terrell Owens of the Dallas Cowboys;
New Mexico – hiring felons to work on registration drives;
North Carolina – fraudulent registrations submitted;
Ohio - one man ACORN registered to vote over 70 times;
Pennsylvania – $2k reward offered for ACORN temp charged with perjury, identity theft and vote fraud;
Texas – 40% of 27K registrations from Houston rejected;
Washington – worst case of registration fraud in state history;
Wisconsin – hiring felons as “special registration deputies” and falsifying registration forms.
The links above are just one link to the state’s story. In several instances there are multiple reports on the same case and in a few instances, there are multiple cases of fraud in a single state. The point is, this isn’t made up. ACORN’s standard response seems to be the “We can’t be made to pay for what others do!” defense. But they don’t seem to mind if we pay in their place.
With the news out the Obama campaign hired ACORN, paying them $800k for voter registration it seems likely the heat is not going to do anything but increase. Stay tuned and stay informed. Alert and knowledgeable citizens outflank 15 state strategies every time!
I’m confused. You say that ‘they don’t mind if we pay in their place.’ How are ‘we’ paying?
1) Multiple media outlets have reported that these multiple fake registrations are created by individuals trying to boost their numbers to make quotas (and get paid).
2) ACORN *by law* must turn in every submitted registration, whether they believe them to be falsified or not.
3) In many cases (granted, there were exceptions where this was not done), ACORN included cover letters with the suspicious registrations, alerting election officials that the registrations may be bogus.
4) Where is the fraud? If *by law*, ACORN must turn these in, and if they are alerting officials of the suspicious provenence, how is ACORN ‘guilty?’
5) Moreover, even if submitted voter registrations cards for ‘Tony Romo’ or ‘Mickey Mouse’ slip through, there is no one to cast a vote, thus no voter fraud (you need to cast a fraudulent vote for voter fraud, I believe).
At the worst, ACORN is a poorly run organization with incentives that are misaligned with its mission. For this reason, management changes need to be made. However, there is no evidence of any centralized political conspiracy, any directive to falsify registrations.
Remember, they don’t count as ‘commie leftist’ votes unless someone goes to the voting booth, claims to be the person represented in the false registration, shows identification (that would need to be falsified), and casts a vote for Obama. There is ZERO EVIDENCE that there was any intention of this occurring.
This is simply an opportunity for the Right to try to create fear amongst the public. “Look at those leftist commie democrats – they are trying to steal America away!” Bluecollarmuse, you’re just another mouthpiece. There is no ‘voter fraud’ unless a fraudulent vote is cast.
@bozinny -
Dude, that must be some AWESOME Kool-Aid you got there. Not that I think it will do much good to reason with you, but, I’m not real busy at the moment so I’ll take a stab at it …
**We end up paying for it with the highest of possible prices: loss of confidence in our electoral process. Once that is gone, we are halfway down the road to losing the country.
**That the fraudulent registrations are being done by folks hired by ACORN is immaterial. Unless you also want to let hospitals off the hook when their doctors mess up, corporations off the hook when their CEOs mess up and political parties off the hook when their politicians mess up.
**Good for ACORN for turning in all the materials their employees or agents acquired for them. Good for them in blowing the whistle. However …
**There are other issues besides invalid voter registration cards. Things like hiring felons, for instance. ACORN is responsible for their actions. If they suck at hiring, training and implementation, how is that the fault of anyone but ACORN?
**While it is correct that actually casting a vote for which you are not eligible is voter fraud, the system that enables and empowers such voting is also culpable. On election day, if there were no bad registrations with which to match up false voters, vote fraud would be much more difficult. Yet another reason why Democrats oppose voter identification via picture ID.
**There are also other issues such as OH state SecState Brunner refusing to permit questionable registrations to be checked against state records. This would mean there are potential voters fraudulently registered. Thus, please don’t dismiss the threat of invalid registrations to insist I only focus on actual votes cast.
**That such threats are real, consider that OH groups are in the process of filing suit for actual votes cast by people using invalid registrations.
**The worst is reality. ACORN is a poorly run organization which has incentivized the structure for vote fraud. This is not at odds with it’s mission, that IS the mission. If they were not smart enough to recognize the threat to themselves after all the problems they’ve had over years, they deserve all the problems they cause for themselves.
**For instance, in Houston, TX alone, 40% of the 27K registrations turned in were problematic. Find me any other organization that is committed to GOTV efforts with that sort of horrific track record. But there’s no systemic organizational efforts … riiiight …
**As mentioned above, there IS evidence that exactly such behavior is going on. As the investigations progress, expect to find more evidence, not less …
**With the current watering down of voter registration law – provisional balloting and such – even if there is minimal or no vote fraud committed, ACORN has intentionally set the stage for legal challenges, recounts and invalidation of election results they don’t like.
**Finally, you accuse me of being a mouthpiece for the Right. Let’s say you’re correct. ACORN and others claim to be non-partisan. Let’s assume that’s also correct. That would mean there would be equal possibility that ACORN would be fraudulently registering GOP voters, too. Why isn’t the Left equally concerned with the possibility that ACORN’s actions would permit GOP vote fraud? Might it be that the Left is unconcerned because they know they have nothing to fear from ACORN’s efforts? Not that it can’t produce vote fraud, but because it won’t produce GOP vote fraud.
Again, I don’t expect you to be rational or realistic about this. You’re obviously as partisan as I am. But that doesn’t make you right. It doesn’t make me right either. Realistically looking at ACORN’s actual actions and behavior make me right.
Ken
Ken – Surely you recognize that reason is the first casualty of partisanship, and that your long posts only bounce off the walls of Lizzy’s echo chamber?
More importantly, how were you able to BOLD your text? Are simple tags supported in the comments?
Eric
P.S. You have WAY too much time on your hands, given the length of your response. LOL.
@bozinny
I don’t know if reason is a casualty, but emotion surely gets a steroid shot! And you’re right about my posts being longer of late. I really do try to keep them down. I reread and edit them more than once before actual posting. I’ve pulled as much as 40% off the first draft before doing so.
And I don’t view partisanship as a bad thing as long as it is tempered by reason. For instance, it’s clear from decades of international experience what happens when a country raises taxes and what happens when it lowers them. Those results are not open for debate.
The only thing one can do is argue emotionally that wanting one result but implementing the other plan is the smart thing to do. I tend to not like those sorts of discussions.
And yes, simple tags, including, if I’m not mistaken, URL links are supported by WordPress comments. Watch the URLs though as most spam filters key on them.
And yes, today I have a great deal of time on my hands. I have posting privileges at a number of blogs and have cross posted this piece across the web. My work here at ML&F is one of those cross postings.
My original post was picked up this morning at NRO and several other places. The resultant traffic melted my server. So I have spent a lot of time interacting with commenters.
I’ve enjoyed our chat. Feel free to call me out anytime. As long as we do it this way, this is why I blog.
Ken
Let’s bounce this off the echo chamber.
A RICO suit has been filed against ACORN in Ohio
http://buckeyeinstitute.org/article/1207
Another is apparently in the works, coming out of Chicago.
I like the acoustics in here.
Let’s bounce this off the echo chamber in here:
You all are so screwed. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
BTW–will John McCain also be implicated in the RICO suit? He was, after all, an ACORN supporter just two years ago. It shouldn’t take you geniuses too long to find the pics.
Have fun with that, and all your baseless accusations of voter fraud too. It’s also known as voter suppression to non-GOoPers.
We all know Obama supporters are fluent in voter suppression; that’s how he managed to get nominated in the first place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGZFgMNM-UU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXNqFQmGxDU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4XFvq5XMk8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnclKiHwatw&feature=related
Of course y’all are probably very proud of yourselves.
Hey, shouldn’t that be 57 states?
PCC, that’s actually 61 states. If you remember, “The One” said he had been to 57 states with two to go. That makes 59. But he went on to explain that he wasn’t going to Alaska and Hawaii to bring the grand total to 61. Now it could be argued that Michigan and Florida don’t really exist since they didn’t seem to in the primaries; that would bring the total back down to 59. I’m sure the good folks at ACORN could settle the matter for us though.