Coming on the heels of yesterday's Voter Fraud Taskforce raid on Nevada's ACORN headquarters for voter fraud, I've just heard that investigations are occurring in my own state, Indiana , and seven other states as well. Over half of the thousands of voter registrations turned in by ACORN here in Indiana are fraudulent. It isn't even subtle fraud; in Las Vegas, they registered the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys . You were supposed to be registering disenfranchised minorities, ACORN- Tony Romo isn't a disenfranchised minority. And no, this isn't "alleged" fraud; some of those arrested previously have already pled guilty.
Damn ACORN! How dare they! It doesn't matter how big Obama's landslide is if the results can't be certified. With Ohio's idiotic register-and-vote-on-the-spot-with-no-background-check rules, there's no possibility they'll sort it out by election day- the lawsuit preventing certification pending investigation is a certainty. Here in Indiana, where we cut off registration a month before the election, we have a bare chance of a clean election. but there'll probably still be enough doubts for a lawsuit. As to the other battleground states where ACORN HQ's are being raided or investigated even as I write, I don't know, but it's becoming more likely every day that the election will be carried out in the Supreme Court, or even the House of Representatives. Damn it, it was embarrassing enough to have UN observers for the elections four years ago; it's utterly humiliating to realize we might actually need them this time.
My only consolation is that Governor Palin is proved wrong once again- it seems some community organizers will be legally responsible after all.
UPDATE: Even as I was writing, I received an interesting email. Yesterday's Indianapolis Star reported that Marion County (Indianapolis) had 677, 401 registered voters. STATS Indiana reports that we have 644,197 residents in Marion County over the age of 18. My, we Hoosiers are civic minded... we've registered 105% of our population! Best total in the country! ...I hope.
9 comments:
The explanation ACORN has given: "We pay people to go out and register voters, some people get lazy and turn in fake forms. Once the forms are turned in,even if we suspect they are fake, we are legally required to turn them over to the state. We're as much a victim as anyone else here" makes sense to me.
And given that Indiana has a voter ID law, unless you think ACORN is also making fake IDs in the name of the Dallas Cowboys, then it's likely this won't effect the election at all.
CC
ACORN does make the claim that they try to police their submissions, but with state after state saying that less than half of what's turned in is good, they could fairly be described as having a careless disregard for the law.
Yes, Indiana's ID law will be invaluable, and I'll wager that a lot of states that have been ridiculing it as unnecessary will wish they'd had such a law when the lawsuits start rolling in. Florida has a worse problem: "More than 30,000 Florida felons who by law should have been stripped of their right to vote remain registered to cast ballots in this presidential battleground state, a Sun Sentinel investigation has found.
Many are faithful voters, with at least 4,900 turning out in past elections.
Another 5,600 are not likely to vote Nov. 4 — they're still in prison.
Of the felons who registered with a party, Democrats outnumber Republicans more than two to one."
The attached video in that Sun Sentinel story is an interview with a convicted felon who was asked to register by the local Democratic party, and did receive his voter's registration card in the mail. ID won't help in that situation; he has a "valid" registration. Better hope for a landslide so big any complaints are ruled moot.
((Better hope for a landslide so big any complaints are ruled moot.))
Why? Are you assuming that if there were voter irregularities in Florida in a close election that would effect anything? Why would you assume that?
And while ACORN has said they are trying to police their submissions to fire the people who are making up registrations, they are still LEGALLY REQUIRED to turn in every one. Can you imagine if organizatins were allowed to collect voter registrations and selectively turn them in?
As for voter registration fraud, if that's really what ACORN was planning, are you so certain they would pick a state with voter ID checks that Bush took by 21 percent over Kerry to do it in?
ACORN's explanation sure fits the facts better than any theory involving a serious plan to register fake voters in Indiana, where it would almost certianly be impossible to register enough of them to make a difference, to say nothing of election day logistics.
IMHO any serious plan to rig an election would involve a few kep states, and Indiana sure as hell wouldn't be one of them.
CC
I'm not claiming an active conspiracy to throw the election- you know my axiom, never ascribe to conspiracy anything that can be explained by simple incompetence.
My complaint is that they obviously don't give a damn what they're doing to the body politic as long as they can run up large numbers of registrations- and that goes for the top management as well as the guys in the street. Massive numbers means massive dollars, and the chance to hobnob with political heroes, and to Hell with the consequences. A seventeen year old assistant manager at McDonald's could have told them that the organization they had set up was a guaranteed formula for abuse- but it would also return big numbers to get them big grants. Which is all they cared about.
My anger is not from a belief that they are conspiring to fix the election- in a way, that would be better; it would show they actually cared about something. My anger comes from the way they are setting the stage for a worse-than-2000 election, tainting an election the country desparately needs to come together on out of sheer greed.
With the sheer logistical difficulty of actually using any significant number of fake registrations to vote, I think you'd have to be a pretty great believer in conspiracy to call the electon "tainted."
Besides, all the fake registrations in the world can't effect the polls and the polls are quite clear.
CC
"... I think you'd have to be a pretty great believer in conspiracy to call the electon "tainted."
How many Democrats are still saying, even after the counts conducted by news media, that Bush was "selected, not elected"? I'll wager you know some people who still say that. What will Republicans say if Florida is lost by 500 votes, and it is known that 5,000 felons voted?
"Besides, all the fake registrations in the world can't effect the polls and the polls are quite clear. "
Aren't they continually warning us about the "Bradley Effect"?
Eh, the Bradley effect has been declining, though and was never big enough to makeup this much difference.
((What will Republicans say if Florida is lost by 500 votes, and it is known that 5,000 felons voted?)))
Judging by the Democrats in 2000, they will bitch a lot, be largely ignored and nothing will come of it while the new president acts like he has a mandate.
And besides, though Obama has a pretty safe lead in Florida, he can lose it and still win easily.
CC
You know, rather than debate the incompetence or ill-intent of ACORN, perhaps it would behoove us to focus instead on ways to improve our system of voting so that every eligible citizen has the right to vote and every vote counts.
I believe we have more to fear from efforts at voter suppression than the pitiful actions of street people to earn extra money to buy booze or drugs.
Yeah, while Indiana is complinging about "thousands," ACORN has registered 1.3 million voters who did turn out to be legitimate upon investigation so far. Furthermore, a lot of the forms can't be verified one way or another because one of their main focuses in registering the homeless.
ACORN verifies what it can itself, and then submits everything else, cowboys included, under a coversheet that says essentially "These look sketchy to us, but we're required to submit them."
But hey, the McCain campaign is happy to bitch about it, not because it's a real story, but because linking "community organizers" with shenanagins benefits them.
CC
who got a letter the other day reminding her that she was still registered to vote in South Carolina, where she hasn't lived since March of 2002.
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