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Attacks on ACORN Based Not on Facts, But on Fear of 1.3 Million Poor People Registering
Read More:
Acorn, Acorn Attacks, ACORN Nevada, Acorn Scandal, Acorn Tony Romo, Acorn Voter Fraud, Acorn Voter Registration, Barack Obama Community Organizer, Ken Mehlman, Poor Voters, Project Vote, Voter Fraud, Voter Registration,
Chicago News
The Republicans tried to make fun of Barack Obama as a community organizer at their national convention in Minnesota, which I guess just goes to show how little Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have to fear from right-wing "humor."
Now they've gone further: Now they're attacking ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), one of the strongest, hardest-working, most dedicated community organizations in both Chicago and in 40 states across the U.S.
Why are they after ACORN? Well, I'm sure they're going to come up with a lot of "reasons" in the coming days. But the real reason is obvious: Because ACORN, along with Project Vote, just announced that they had successfully registered 1.3 million poor people this year.
Get that? 1.3 million, including 148,000 in Pennsylvania, 152,000 in Florida, 217,000 in Michigan, and 238,000 in Ohio. No wonder the GOP is up in arms. They're scared of too many poor people preparing to vote this year.
In the last week, the right wing has tried to blame ACORN for the collapse of the globalized financial system--yeah, that's a viable argument. They got excited because they found a some possible fake registration forms in Florida, which predictably led to a bunch of whining from the party that stole an entire presidency from Al Gore by blocking vote counts, mischaracterizing voters as felons, refusing to recount entire counties, sending congressional staff down to riot and intimidate volunteer vote-counters, and topped it all off with the most partisan, badly-reasoned, illegitimate Supreme Court decision since Plessy v. Ferguson. A decision so illegitimate that the partisan majority, to their eternal discredit, themselves damned by writing into their own decision that it should never be used as a precedent for any other court ruling.
This week, the right-wing is hyperventilating because apparently Democratic election officials raided an ACORN office after they found the names of some Dallas Cowboy football players among the 80,000 new registration forms that ACORN helped to get done in Nevada.
Obviously it's not right for a fake "Tony Romo" to be registered in Las Vegas, so someone was probably playing a not-very-funny joke, or trying to pad their registration numbers to get paid a little more money rather than doing the hard work in the hot Nevada sun that helping voters to register requires, or maybe a provocateur was setting up ACORN for some bad press. But remember the basic point--it's not voter fraud unless someone shows up at the voting booth on election day and tries to pass himself off as "Tony Romo." And who would try to do that? No one is going to be that stupid.
The truth is, the main voter fraud efforts going on in my lifetime--and I was born the week of the Selma march in 1965--have been repeated conservative attempts, far too many of them successful, to demonize and suppress the vote of African-Americans and Latinos in election after election, a history for which former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman actually apologized a few years ago, while promising the GOP would no longer engage in such tactics.
So they stole an election from Gore, made the Department of Justice into an outfit for partisan hacks, allowed New Orleans to drown, lied us into a war against a country that did not threaten us, replaced science with bad ideology, indebted our grandchildren to China, and turned our banking system into a deregulated casino--but thank the Lord that "Tony Romo" will not be able to sneak in to vote in Nevada next month.
This time, there are already fake flyers mysteriously appearing on the streets of minority areas of Philadelphia, illegal voter purges in numerous states, "caging" tricks, threats of using home foreclosure lists to strike voters from the rolls, and "black box" electronic vote-counting systems under the control of private companies--and we haven't even gotten to election day!
Meanwhile, I say thank you, ACORN. Thank you, Project Vote, for taking our democracy seriously enough to try to include 1.3 million more poor people in a more perfect union.
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Republicans hate America and they hate Americans. They also hate free elections, the Constitution, civil liberties and, oh, pretty much anyone who isn't white, rich and Fundamentalist Christian.
I can't wait for 2042 when these CS will be the minority!
AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I smell Karl Rove all over this. Kathryn Harris, with the blessing of Jeb Bush and the Supreme Court illegally removed 20,000 legal Black voters from voter rolls in Florida in 2000 claiming they were felons. It looks like Rethuglicans are at it again in minority areas in battleground states.
The Repuke motto has long been "Say anything and do anything to win." And, I do mean anything. There is NO line they are unwilling to cross.
How they have the nerve to call themselves God loving Christians is beyond me.
Lou Dobb was talking today about how the proof of at least some of this fraud is many, many registration forms with the same handwriting on the signatures. If you were going to commit fraud, wouldn't you be more careful about that? Try to mix it up? Disguise the handwriting? What's to prevent Rove disciples from filling these forms out en masse and writing ACORN on them to frame this organization and cast doubt on the election results? I may be wrong, but it looked like the word ACORN is written on the registration forms they collect and that's how they ID the ones ACORN collects. How hard would it be to set this up?
My son has just moved from his home state to Indiana. Of course, being 23 years old and very excited about this election, he registered up in Indiana in order to vote on November 3. Since he does quite a bit of traveling, he received a call yesterday, 10/10/08 while he was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, to ensure that he was going to be voting and that he in fact was who he said he was. ACORN has done a great job of getting everyone involved and ensuring they get to vote. I am sure the GOP does not want everyone, minorities especially, to vote and therefore have begun to attack ACORN.
This election for all the youth of our country is the most important and historical privileges of their time, thus far. I have never missed a vote, from primaries to local votes, and have instilled in my kids the importance of exercising their rights. However, I am so shocked by the tone of this election and the racist lies and discrimination that is being put forth. Can anyone imagine how the legal Muslims feel about now? Can you imagine two candidates allowing terms being screamed out at a campaign stump? DISGRACEFUL and McCain and especially Palin should be ashamed of themselves. I always thought the GOP party prided themselves on religious values - Guess not anymore.
Senator Obama & Biden should be proud of themselves A REAL CLASS ACT.
McCain is leading us down a very ugly and destructive path.
The first few posts sum it up ! After taking 2004's election off from poll working to volunteer
assisting voters to polls- etc. I will never forget the ugliness of that election.
What the hysterical 'stories' don't tell is the careful scrutiny that the provisional voters get-
thanks to the new rules. In trying to screw the American voting system , indeed the Republican thugs may have just screwed themselves? Dare to dream!
I work with the local Obama campaign headquarters, here in Florida, and suspicious flyers have been mailed to minority neighborhoods, telling residents that they don't have to vote on November 4th and can wait until November 5th to vote. This is the kind of despicable tactics we are dealing with.
Go Obama!!
The right wing has always been after ACORN. This latest round of attacks looks like a typical smear campaign. One example of this is the attacks by consumersr
To an uncritical person It would appear that CRL is just a consumer protection group. However from what I can see this is just a right wing group possing as a consumer group. Also on their site you will see that another group they are attacking is PIRG.
People need to wake up and see the right wing dirty tricks being played out here. These are probably the same people who had no problem vilifying John McCain when he ran against Bush. Now they are on the side of John McCain because he's there guy this go round in the elections.
Strange isn't it that the Republican Party and their allies who disenfranchised over 20,000 black voters in Florida in the 2000 presidential election and are past masters at this sort of thing elsewhere across the United States - a brand they quite sucessfully exported to Mexico in that country's last presidential election - are now crying foul, at the very same time that they are doing their level best in this 2008 presidential race to scrub repossessed homeowners from the voter register in their respective districts.
Professor Dr. Stanley Collymore
London, England.
Remember when Rush said vote for Hillary.
How many trolls post on the Huff to divert and change the subject.
How easy it would be to put up a bunch of bogus registrations in an effort to gum up the works.
Makes you wonder??
I could care less about legitimately registering people to vote, regardless of party, which an ACORN spokeswoman on CNN claimed they do, it sounds like a good and noble cause.
However, when in Cleveland they found that the same man was registered 72 times, that's not good.
In Connecticut, when a 7 year old girl was registered, that doesn't look very good.
In Wisconsin, when dead people were somehow being registered, and about 30 people are being investigated, that looks bad.
In one county, they found 2100 out of 5000 voter registration cards to be invalid, that looks terrible.
In Nevada, where the FBI raided an ACORN office, and it found that felons, some of whom were convicted of identity theft are committing voter registration fraud, that's a big black eye.
So far, I think about 12 state's so far have had an issue with ACORN, and almost all of them are the "battleground" states.
I think its great to register people to vote, as long as it's done the correct way.
links for your accusations against ACORN??
As a troll, I know it's hard for you to fact the truth but here it is if you care to look:
http://www
FYI, none of the things you mentioned would have any effect on an election. Just because some man registered 72 times does not mean he can vote 72 times; he can only vote once. I have often signed registration forms in front of stores even though I always vote and therefore am supposed to be kept on the voting roles. This doesn't mean I'm quilty of any kind of fraud. It just means I want to be sure I have not been mistakenly taken off the list of registered voters.
Are you really afraid that a 7 year old girl would be allowed to vote?
Anyone can register to vote. It's up to the election officials to make sure they are qualified to vote.
Thank You, my point thought exactly. Also it is against the law for citizens to discard voter registration cards even if there are mistakes on it , that is the sole responsibility of the county registrar's office. Lous Dobbs and the others in MSM keep forgetting to mention this pesky little fact.
So what happens when 72 different people show up to vote and all cry disenfranchisement when those election officials question their qualification?
Obama has a significant lead, but it will be interesting to see if he is going to be allowed to win.
It's not a black thing or white thing. But in every case I can remember the Rethuglicans always target black voters. It was that way in 1992,2000, and 2006. If it looks like a dog, got fleas, takes a whiz on a tree. IT'S A DOG. Thats what this is.
We have to stick with this narrative, folks. Mark my words: the conservatives are going to try to blow this into a big "scandal" to push down Obama's poll numbers and distract the voters from Palin's (very real) abuse of power scandal going on.
The GOP has already fairly successfully controlled the media narrative, with many MSM news outlets uncritically labeling ACORN as some sort of suspect, criminal organization.
We CANNOT let the GOP own the narrative on this one. Do what I've done: email your senator, your media outlet, your friends and family. Help get Rep. Jackson's message out: this anti-ACORN smear going on is not about a few hundred bad voter registrations. It's about the GOP trying to distract the populace and trying to cast a pall of illegitimacy over what's shaping up to be a massive rout in favor of the Democrats.
The GOP did the same thing last election. It's BS.
ACORN was robbed by the people who padded their registration lists for money.
http://tpm
More GOP lies and deception.
So you get a couple crazies who screw up the process and we
are supposed to forget Kathryn Harris and throw out the whole system?
Because rich whites manipulate the system that makes it OK?
Don't get me started.
Best explanation of why ACORN submitted those fake registration forms, by law, they had to submit ALL registrations however, they did flag them. Of course, they don't let you know that.
http://www
There's no reason to pad registration lists for money, because ACORN pays by the hour, not by the card.
Link please, because that is not what most of the googled links say. They say they pay 1$ per registration.
The GOP pays 4$ per registration.
That's just the way it's done.
There was a report out recently about the NRA using subversive methods and double agents to infiltrate the anti gun movement. What is there to stop the Rethugs from using the same subversive means to discredit an organization that advocates contrary to their interests? Now all this fuss from Repugs about Tony Romos trying to vote in Vegas where McCain gambles with his mob pals. Not a word however from these protectors of electoral integrity when Diebold and Electronic Data Systems provide hackable voting devices for the electorate. They are setting this country up for disaster at the polls and dissension in the country. Dick and Bush will still be in charge and can declare martial law in the event of widespread rioting should Obama lose. I'm just sayin'.
Jesse, I applaud ACORN's work, and thanks for extolling their efforts, yet the fact that voter fraud has been spotted in 12 states is a troubling developmen
Democrats trying to behave like Repubs to win is a shameful development. Obama doesn't need fraudsters to win!
Voter fraud does not occur until a vote has actually been cast. What is happening here is that some media is misrepresenting fraudulent registrations as voter fraud. The likelihood of voter fraud occurring is very slim. First the name must be on the poll book. Secondly, you need someone willing to present themselves as the voter with some identification. Third, there is no guarantee that if said person got this far they would actually cast vote desired, Lastly, the penalty is a fine and/or imprisonment. This whole thing of targeting ACORN is just another way to suppress votes, by causing people to believe they did something illegal.
ACORN does NOT "sign people up willy nilly." It is required by law to turn in every registration form it collects. Before turning them in, ACORN makes extensive efforts to VERIFY the forms. They place the forms in three categories: verified, unverified (e.g., the voter couldn't be reached by telephone) and problematic (e.g., very unlikely name and/or dubious signature). Thus, ACORN itself alerts the authorities to any potential problems. That's not fraud by ACORN; it's fraud AGAINST ACORN by people doing the footwork.
State authorities have turned ACORN's exemplary effort to enfranchise the disenfranchised into a fake scandal. They have done such things as used federal data-bases to screen entire lists of newly registered voters rather than using state data-bases, which are demonstrably more accurate. Thus, they have purged VERIFIED as well as not yet verified registrations from the voter lists without using the most accurate means of verification, in addition to purging forms that ACORN itself warned appear on their face to be fraudulent. The only scandal here is the continuing concerted effort, primarily by Republicans, to prevent American citizens from exercising their most fundamental Constitutional right. What Nevada Democratic officials are up to is another issue, but it is as certainly a phony issue as it is in the other states in which it has arisen. Perhaps we need look no farther than the conduct of some of those officials during the primary to find the answer.
ACORN makes such extensive efforts to verify the forms that their members keep getting indicted for submitting false registrations.
And let's think about this......
When the GOP is involved, it speaks conspiracy to me. They're masters at it!!
That's a bit of a stretch.
A lot of people thought the 2000 and 2004 election was a bit of a stretch as well.
I still dont see how it is "voter fraud" to get people to register.
If they register more than once, they still can only vote once, correct?
IDK. I Canada, before every election they go door to door and register people. Then they make a list and when you vote you are crossed off the list. Is this not how it is done here?
They're alleging that ACORN registered dead people and people who do not exist, with names like "Mac Donald's with fast food restaurant addresses,
Or even folks w/in ACORN that did this, they knew the upshot (conservatives would get this in the MSM) so they planted this to be revealed, and then they could say 'You've been punked conservatives'
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