International bloggers have begun to file their opinions on ACORN, a 38-year-old community organizing group which registers voters across the United States that has come under attack for allegedly creating fraudulent voter registrations cards.
Criticism began to mount last week after federal authorities with search warrants raided ACORN's state office in Nevada under the assumption that it “submitted nearly 300 apparently fraudulent voter cards as part of its drive.†According to Nevada’s Secretary of State [1], some registration cards included names were of people who did not live in state, along with names of members of the Dallas Cowboy football team.
Members of the Republican National Committee [2] argue the group’s aggressive tactics has created faulty registration in other parts of the country.
By its own admission, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN has attempted [3] to help low-income, minority and young people register to vote across the country. This year, the group has staked a goal of registering 1.3 million people, which it hoped to meet by paying people to canvass neighborhoods searching for unregistered voters. Nevada authorities claim canvassers must meet a strict daily quota of 20 new registrations or face probation.
This is not the first time since ACORN has raised the ire of Republicans. In 2004, the RNC complained the group participated in voter fraud during the Presidential election. A former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico appointed by President Bush contends [4] one of the reasons he was fired was after an investigation he argued that complaints of alleged voter fraud against ACORN during the 2004 election were “not criminally prosecutable.â€
Republican Presidential nominee John McCain has joined the attacks, telling a rally in Wiconsin:
“You've seen the allegations, the multiple registrations under the same name, the more registered voters than the population. These are serious allegations, my friends, and they must be investigated, and they must be investigated immediately and they must be stopped before November the fourth.”
McCain’s campaign has pointed out that as a lawyer in 1995 Barack Obama represented ACORN in a federal suit to force the State of Illinois to make it easier to vote.
Even with the alleged fraud, it will be hard for the McCain camp to prove it, argues Alberto de la Cruz, in the Cuban Babalu [5] blog:
With all of the outright fraud going on right now and more of it surely to come, one would think that it would all eventually catch up to Obama and derail his presidential bid. Under normal circumstances, that would be the case. But these are not normal circumstances, and the Obama campaign knows it. In fact, they are counting on it. Regardless of how many instances of voter fraud in favor of Obama are uncovered between here and Election Day, McCain and the Republicans will be powerless to do anything about it. If Obama wins the election, any denouncement of voter fraud by the McCain campaign or the Republicans will be condemned as racism; old, gun toting, Bible thumping, white males trying to steal the election from a black man. The media would gladly jump all over a story like that. Just as they have done up until now, they would quickly cover up the fraud and destroy those that dare challenge the election outcome.
Moxyfilms [6] in Dublin twittered this point:
Obama's no fraud just because ACORN's business model has a flaw. There's no voter fraud until the voters vote. Full stop.
One can make the argument [7] that two different kinds of voter fraud exist: As in this case, we could have corrupt voter registration, a type of chicanery that attempts to place more people than possible on the voting rolls; Secondly, and arguably much more serious, is tampering with the vote by getting people to cast more than one ballot by using fake names or by stuffing ballots boxes.
According to a commentator at Babalu named Cigar Mike Pancier [8], the best way to counter true voter fraud is:
…Volunteer as a poll watcher for the election.
I've done it for several elections now. Unless we have people in the polls, the risk of fraud at the polls will be greater.
From Dissecting Left [9] an Australian blog whose tagline reads “American Liberals Don’t Love America. They despise it,†wonders whether ACORN could really tip the election to Obama.
Is it really possible that the presidency could be stolen for Obama by virtue of a massive voter fraud here in Pennsylvania? And elsewhere? ACORN seems to think so. One so-called “non-partisan” ACORN member, Gleason pointed out, has been captured on video tape saying the group's objective was to “beat McCain down.” Not exactly “non-partisan” sounding, is it?Newman, the retired Supreme Court Justice, was blunt on the evidence: “I don't want a president who does this.” ACORN clearly does. Makes you wonder: why?