The nutty ACORN charges

To hear Republicans, the McCain-Bush-Palin ticket and the wackos, felons and dopers on right wing talk radio tell it, there is mass voter fraud going on out there and the chief culprit is an organization called ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now).

{To hear the same right-wingers speak, ACORN also is solely to blame for the financial crisis for its involvement in loans that had nothing to do with the bad loans being made in unregulated markets. It’s another bald-faced lie from “Keating 5″ McCain.}

However, back to the phony issue. Someone actually has looked into this - the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School.

The “voter fraud” cry has been increasingly used to justify policies that suppress legitimate voters. But the cry is baseless; allegations of voter fraud—especially polling place impersonation fraud—almost always prove to be inflated or inaccurate. The Brennan Center carefully examines allegations of fraud to get at the truth behind the claims. The truth of the matter is that voter fraud—votes knowingly cast by ineligible individuals—is exceedingly rare; one is more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud. Our work debunking the voter fraud myth is available at Truth About Fraud.

In 2007, the Brennan Center released The Truth About Voter Fraud, the most extensive analysis of voter fraud claims to date. The report finds that most allegations of fraud turn out to be baseless—and that of the few allegations remaining, most reveal election irregularities and other forms of election misconduct, rather than fraud by individual voters. The type of individual voter fraud supposedly targeted by recent legislative efforts—especially efforts to require certain forms of voter ID—simply does not exist. A presentation describing vote suppression measures promoted by the U.S. Department of Justice can be found here.
Source: Brennan Center for Justice

Actually, “voter fraud” scares, described by the report “as more smoke than fire” usually end up denying legitimate voters of their basic rights.

Allegations of widespread voter fraud, however, often prove greatly exaggerated. It is easy to grab headlines
with a lurid claim (“Tens of thousands may be voting illegally!”); the follow-up — when any exists — is not usually deemed newsworthy. Yet on closer examination, many of the claims of voter fraud amount to a great deal of smoke without much fire. The allegations simply do not pan out.
These inflated claims are not harmless. Crying “wolf ” when the allegations are unsubstantiated distracts attention from real problems that need real solutions. If we can move beyond the fixation on voter fraud, we will be able to focus on the real changes our elections need, from universal registration all the way down to sufficient parking at the poll site.
Moreover, these claims of voter fraud are frequently used to justify policies that do not solve the alleged wrongs, but that could well disenfranchise legitimate voters. Overly restrictive identification requirements for voters at the polls — which address a sort of voter fraud more rare than death by lightning — is only the most prominent example.
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law carefully examines allegations of fraud to get at the truth behind the claims. The Brennan Center has analyzed purported fraud cited by state and federal courts; multipartisan and bipartisan federal commissions; political party entities; state and local election officials;and authors, journalists, and bloggers. Usually, only a tiny portion of the claimed illegality is substantiated — and most of the remainder is either nothing more than speculation or has been conclusively debunked.
Source: The Truth About Voter Fraud

Now, here’s what the fear mongers and panic panderers fail to tell you. In most states, a third party, such as ACORN, is required to turn in all cards that are filled out. As it is illegal to throw out even obviously-bogus cards, ACORN says it flags them as questionable and sends them for official state action.

{By the way, remember John McCain’s immigration bill - the one that drew the hatred and ire of the right wing radio dopers, felons and perverts? The same immigration bill that was summarily dismissed by most of his own party? Remember the immigration bill in which he firmly believed until it was better politics for him not to? Well, he was happy enough and proud enough of ACORN. Yes, just as in fair immigration reform, McCain was for ACORN before he was against. it.}

Here’s what ACORN says about the attacks from “Keating 5″ McCain and “Troopergate” Palin -

The Facts:

• ACORN has helped 1.3 million citizens from all parties and all walks of life apply for voter registration.
• In most states, ACORN is required by law to turn in every voter registration card - even in cases where the cards are not valid.
• It is ACORN that has reported almost all of the issues regarding voter registration cards to elections officials, and flagged the suspicious cards.
• Invalid voter registration cards do NOT constitute voter fraud. Even RNC General Counsel Sean Cairncross has recently acknowledged he is not aware of a single improper vote cast as a result of bad cards submitted in the course of an organized voter registration effort.
• ACORN hired 13,000 field workers to register people to vote. In any endeavor of this size, some people will engage in inappropriate conduct. ACORN has a zero tolerance policy and terminated any field workers caught engaging in questionable activity. At the end of the day, as ACORN is paying these people to register voters, it is ACORN that is defrauded.

Source: ACORN

So, how do you respond when there are millions of new voters out there? Do you celebtate this reawakening of interest in American democracy?  If you are the GOP and its minions, you work to vilify them. You attack the new voters to intimidate them from going to the polls. Then you smear all those who work to register new voters to insure as many American as possible on all points of the political compass are able to exercise their right to vote.

That is not change we need and certainly not the “change you deserve™” (remember that theft of a trademark phrase by the GOP?).

“Voter fraud” is a sleazy and sorry attack by a panicked campaign using the same old Rovian tactics of lies, fear and intimidation to gain a third term for the failed policies of Boy George Bush and his inept, corrupt administration.

Fight the smears with all your might.