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ACORN Voter Fraud
Friday, October 31st, 2008
There's been a huge stink being raised by right-wing bloggers and news media types about the community organization ACORN over allegations of voter fraud. If you do a Google search you will get plenty of hits from blogs and message boards about it. They all are pointing at the testimony of Anita Montcrief and saying that it is damning.
However, there are a few problems with the whole situation. Firstly is actually calling it "voter fraud." That alone is an extremely disingenuous tactic. Here is a quick breakdown of the process. ACORN hires people to go out into the neighborhood and register voters. These people, for better or worse, get a little bonus cash for each registration form they turn in. ACORN looks them over, flags the forms they think are fraudulent. The registration forms are then turned into the state or county election commission.
As it turns out, more than a few of the people supposedly out getting registrations were filing out bogus forms, a lot of them at times. So the problem here is not with ACORN trying to rig the election, it is with the people on the street doing the registration. If anyone is getting shafted here, it is ACORN. ACORN is paying these people to do a job and they are not doing it, they are trying to line their pockets at ACORN's expense. After the people caught turning in bogus forms are fired, I'm not sure if ACORN gets their money back. I have not seen any mention of that.
Suffice to say, that is not "voter fraud" as the faulty registrations end up going nowhere except into the rubbish bin. Real voter fraud is an intentional tampering of actual votes cast during the election. Thus far there is no evidence whatsoever that such a thing has been, or is being, attempted by ACORN or Project Vote.
The next problem we run into is that ACORN turned in thousands of fraudulent registration forms. This certainly could be true in some cases. What the right-wing bloggers (and their readers) fail to take into consideration is that in many states ACORN is required by law to turn them in. That is the whole reason for the flagging process, it is a first-level whittling down of the workload, which is then continued by the election commission.
The next problem we hear brought up is that the Obama donor list and the Project Vote donor list match almost exactly, suggesting collusion between the Obama campaign and Project Vote. Ms. Montcrief stated that a supervisor told her that the list came from the Obama campaign. Project Vote spokesman Michael McDunnah denies that the list came from the Obama campaign. I can buy that since it is simply not necessary. Election campaign donor lists are required to be public record. You can download them in their entirety from the FEC website, or look them up at OpenSecrets.org. Now you too have a complete list of Obama's donors, or McCain's, or Ron Paul's, or Rudy Guiliani's, or Ralph Nader's, or any of the other's.
So far, what I have read about the whole affair is less than damning. In fact I would say it is most damning to the GOP lawyers as it shows that they are really stretching. I will say that if something is brought to light that is damaging to ACORN and/or the Obama campaign I will be amongst the first to acknowledge it. What I will not do however is just blindly follow the word given to me by some blogger providing a one sentence "conviction."
The last problem I will mention is by far the most serious. That problem is the tendency of the far right-wing to act as if allegation is synonymous with guilt. Allegation and guilt are two entirely different things. The former is quite easy and takes practically no effort, hence the virulent spread of this subject across internet message boards and blogs. The later is, at times, extremely difficult as it requires actual effort through investigation and even old-fashioned legwork.
This whole affair has just been yet another desperate attempt by the GOP to win at any cost. The real trouble is that there are so many people willing to buy it. Willing to just accept one cherry picked sentence as "proof" and thus ---> allegation = guilt. There are many reasons for people thinking that way, which I will not get into here. But I ask you this — Which is really a greater threat to democracy? An Obama presidency, or a presidency won by such duplicitous means?
richter
Friday, October 31st, 2008
There's been a huge stink being raised by right-wing bloggers and news media types about the community organization ACORN over allegations of voter fraud. If you do a Google search you will get plenty of hits from blogs and message boards about it. They all are pointing at the testimony of Anita Montcrief and saying that it is damning.
However, there are a few problems with the whole situation. Firstly is actually calling it "voter fraud." That alone is an extremely disingenuous tactic. Here is a quick breakdown of the process. ACORN hires people to go out into the neighborhood and register voters. These people, for better or worse, get a little bonus cash for each registration form they turn in. ACORN looks them over, flags the forms they think are fraudulent. The registration forms are then turned into the state or county election commission.
As it turns out, more than a few of the people supposedly out getting registrations were filing out bogus forms, a lot of them at times. So the problem here is not with ACORN trying to rig the election, it is with the people on the street doing the registration. If anyone is getting shafted here, it is ACORN. ACORN is paying these people to do a job and they are not doing it, they are trying to line their pockets at ACORN's expense. After the people caught turning in bogus forms are fired, I'm not sure if ACORN gets their money back. I have not seen any mention of that.
Suffice to say, that is not "voter fraud" as the faulty registrations end up going nowhere except into the rubbish bin. Real voter fraud is an intentional tampering of actual votes cast during the election. Thus far there is no evidence whatsoever that such a thing has been, or is being, attempted by ACORN or Project Vote.
The next problem we run into is that ACORN turned in thousands of fraudulent registration forms. This certainly could be true in some cases. What the right-wing bloggers (and their readers) fail to take into consideration is that in many states ACORN is required by law to turn them in. That is the whole reason for the flagging process, it is a first-level whittling down of the workload, which is then continued by the election commission.
The next problem we hear brought up is that the Obama donor list and the Project Vote donor list match almost exactly, suggesting collusion between the Obama campaign and Project Vote. Ms. Montcrief stated that a supervisor told her that the list came from the Obama campaign. Project Vote spokesman Michael McDunnah denies that the list came from the Obama campaign. I can buy that since it is simply not necessary. Election campaign donor lists are required to be public record. You can download them in their entirety from the FEC website, or look them up at OpenSecrets.org. Now you too have a complete list of Obama's donors, or McCain's, or Ron Paul's, or Rudy Guiliani's, or Ralph Nader's, or any of the other's.
So far, what I have read about the whole affair is less than damning. In fact I would say it is most damning to the GOP lawyers as it shows that they are really stretching. I will say that if something is brought to light that is damaging to ACORN and/or the Obama campaign I will be amongst the first to acknowledge it. What I will not do however is just blindly follow the word given to me by some blogger providing a one sentence "conviction."
The last problem I will mention is by far the most serious. That problem is the tendency of the far right-wing to act as if allegation is synonymous with guilt. Allegation and guilt are two entirely different things. The former is quite easy and takes practically no effort, hence the virulent spread of this subject across internet message boards and blogs. The later is, at times, extremely difficult as it requires actual effort through investigation and even old-fashioned legwork.
This whole affair has just been yet another desperate attempt by the GOP to win at any cost. The real trouble is that there are so many people willing to buy it. Willing to just accept one cherry picked sentence as "proof" and thus ---> allegation = guilt. There are many reasons for people thinking that way, which I will not get into here. But I ask you this — Which is really a greater threat to democracy? An Obama presidency, or a presidency won by such duplicitous means?
richter