Interesting article about the whole ACORN situation.

**R13** · October 18th, 2008, 04:45 PM

The stories are almost comical: Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, registered to vote on Nov. 4. The entire starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team, signed up to go the polls "? in Nevada

But no one in either presidential campaign is laughing. Not publicly, anyway.

Republicans, led by John McCain, are alleging widespread voter fraud. The Democrats and Barack Obama say the controversy is preposterous and is just political mudslinging.

In the middle is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, a grass-roots community group that has led liberal causes since it formed in 1970. This year, ACORN hired more than 13,000 part-time workers and sent them out in 21 states to sign up voters in minority and poor neighborhoods.

They submitted 1.3 million registration cards to local election officials.

Along the way, bogus ones appeared "? signed in the names of cartoon characters, professional football players and scores of others bearing the same handwriting. And in the past few days, those phony registrations have exploded into Republican condemnations of far-ranging misconduct, and a relatively obscure community activist group took a starring role, right behind Joe the Plumber, in the final presidential debate.

Looking beyond the smoke and fire, the raging argument boils down to essentially this:

Is ACORN, according to McCain, perpetuating voter fraud that could be "destroying the fabric of democracy"? Or are Republicans trying to keep the disadvantaged, who tend to be Democrats, from casting ballots in a hotly contested presidential race that has drawn record numbers of new voters?

By legal definition, to commit voter fraud means a person would have to present some kind of documentation at the polls "? a driver's license, a phone bill or another form of ID "? that bears the name of Mickey Mouse, for example. To do so risks a fine and imprisonment under state laws.

Submitting fake registration cards is another matter. Local law enforcement agencies in about a dozen states are investigating fake registrations submitted by ACORN workers. Late last week, The Associated Press reported the FBI will be reviewing those cases.

Accusations of stolen votes have a long history in presidential elections. In the 2000 recount debacle, Republicans claimed illegal ballots were cast. Democrats contended that legal ballots were thrown out. In 2004, when Ohio gave the presidency to George W. Bush, Democrats charged that long lines and malfunctioning machines in that state led to an inaccurate count.

But in this contest, involving the first African-American in American history with a real chance at becoming president, the vitriol is particularly pointed.

"This is all just one big head-fake," said Tova Wang of the government watchdog group Common Cause. "What silliness this is, at this point. It's all about creating this perception that there is a tremendous problem with voter fraud in this country, and it's not true."

On Friday, during a campaign appearance, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin repeated McCain's recent claims that Obama has close ties to ACORN.

"You deserve to know," Palin told thousands in a park north of Cincinnati. "This group needs to learn that you here in Ohio won't let them turn the Buckeye State into the Acorn State."

Obama helped represent ACORN in a successful 1995 suit against the state of Illinois, which forced enactment of the so-called motor-voter law, making it easier for people to register vote. Obama said this week that he had "nothing to do with" ACORN's massive voter registration drive.

ACORN spokesman Brian Kettenring retaliated this week in a series of conference calls and interviews. "What we're seeing is the manufacture of a crisis, and attempts to smear Sen. Obama with it. It gives you an excuse should you lose or if there's a contested outcome of the election."

Voter fraud is rare in the United States, according to a 2007 report by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. Based on reviews of voter fraud claims at the federal and state level, the center's report asserted most problems were caused by things like technological glitches, clerical errors or mistakes made by voters and by election officials.

"It is more likely that an individual will be struck by lightning than he will impersonate another voter at the polls," the report said.

Alex Keyssar, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, calls the current controversy "chapter 22 in a drama that's been going on awhile. The pattern is that nothing much ever comes from this. There have been no known cases of people voting fraudulently."

"What we've seen," Keyssar said, "is sloppiness and someone's idea of a stupid joke, like registering as Donald Duck."

ACORN officials have repeatedly claimed that their own quality control workers were the first to discover problematic ballots. In every state investigating bad registrations, ACORN tipped off local officials to bogus or incomplete cards, spokesman Kettenring said.

Many states require that all registrations be submitted to local voting officials so that election directors are in charge of vetting problem ballots, not the groups collecting them.

Part-time ACORN workers receive one day of training and are paid $8 an hour to collect signatures, according to Kettenring. He blamed bogus cards on cheating and lazy employees trying to make a buck for doing nothing.

When caught, Kettenring said, those workers are fired. The group is in the process of tallying the number of bad cards ACORN flagged for election officials, he said. Kettenring said he doubted the percentage of such registrations would reach 2 percent.

But Republicans say any number of fake registrations is unacceptable and could affect the November election.

Signing up voters is a small part of ACORN activities. The group frequently leads challenges to minimum wage laws, predatory mortgage lending in poor and working-class neighborhoods and immigration policies.

Controversy is nothing new. Its leaders are currently locked in a legal dispute stemming from allegations that the brother of the group's founder misappropriated nearly $1 million of the nonprofit's money several years ago.

Since the 2004 election, ex-employees have been convicted of submitting false registrations in states including Florida and Missouri.

"There are certainly problems and I don't think anyone disagrees on that," said Wang of Common Cause. "But it doesn't get reported that ACORN finds these registrations errors themselves. They flag them as being no good, but they have to turn them in anyway."

"They don't get processed," she said. "And Mickey Mouse is not going to vote."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081018/...or_foolishness

**R13** · October 23rd, 2008, 12:08 AM

The Statement

Sen. Barack Obama, discussing his connections to Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, at the Oct. 15 debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, said "the only involvement I've had with ACORN" was representing them in a voter registration case in Illinois.

Get the Facts!

The Facts:
ACORN, a grass-roots community organizing group, faces allegations of filing fraudulent voter registrations in several states. Sen. John McCain, reflecting rising Republican concerns about ACORN, said at the debate "we need to know the full extent of Senator Obama's relationship with ACORN." Obama said any fraudulent registration "had nothing to do with us. We were not involved." And members of the Obama campaign have said the campaign has never paid ACORN to register voters.

On its Web site, ACORN confirms Obama's legal work, saying he "was one of the attorneys there who successfully represented a coalition of groups including ACORN in a legal case that won better enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act in Illinois." The case was filed in 1995. While ACORN said Obama "never organized with or worked for ACORN," it does mention other ties. Obama "accepted two invitations to be an unpaid guest speaker at training for volunteer community leaders organized by Chicago ACORN." That was in the early 1990s.

Additionally, the Obama campaign paid a political consulting group called Citizens' Services' Inc. more than $800,000 early this year for vote canvassing, such as knocking on doors and urging people to vote. The group in turn subcontracted a "small amount" of those funds to ACORN "for recruitment and training of canvassers," ACORN said. Obama campaign advisers stressed in an Oct. 14 teleconference that the campaign paid Citizens' Services Inc. for canvassing, but not voter registration.

The Verdict:
False. Obama's legal work was his only professional tie to the group, but he also spoke at volunteer training sessions and his campaign had a contract with a group that worked with ACORN.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/200...ent-with-acorn/

**Milk3** · October 23rd, 2008, 01:08 AM

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: R13</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The Statement

Obama's legal work was his only professional tie to the group, but he also spoke at volunteer training sessions and his campaign had a contract with a group that worked with ACORN.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/200...ent-with-acorn/ </div></div>
Oooooo it that all
that seems like a lot to me

**R13** · October 23rd, 2008, 01:29 AM

Do you even understand the whole ACORN situation to begin with?

**Milk3** · October 23rd, 2008, 01:59 AM

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: R13</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Do you even understand the whole ACORN situation to begin with? </div></div>
Yes i do
Do you realize you're not the only person that keeps up with politics??? Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean the do not know what's going on... grow up and take criticism a little better

**R13** · October 23rd, 2008, 02:05 AM

Oh I know I'm not. Just think you believe anything the Mccain campaign tells you, the same campaign that is historically the most lying or mudslinging campaign in history. Now tell me what you know, like how can what ACORN did (the controversial part) , hurt Mccain or help Obama in any way? Really, I'd like to know?

**NotSoSilentBob** · October 23rd, 2008, 05:15 AM

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: R13</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Oh I know I'm not. Just think you believe anything the Mccain campaign tells you, the same campaign that is historically the most lying or mudslinging campaign in history. Now tell me what you know, like how can what ACORN did (the controversial part) , hurt Mccain or help Obama in any way? Really, I'd like to know? </div></div>

I wouldn't know where to start with this one... [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/crazy.gif[/img]

October 23rd, 2008, 07:29 AM

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Milk3</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: R13</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Do you even understand the whole ACORN situation to begin with? </div></div>
Yes i do
Do you realize you're not the only person that keeps up with politics??? Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean the do not know what's going on... grow up and take criticism a little better </div></div>
Isn't an acorn a nut? [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif[/img]

**TheBeast** · October 23rd, 2008, 09:12 AM

**R13** · October 23rd, 2008, 11:42 AM

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: NotSoSilentBob</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: R13</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Oh I know I'm not. Just think you believe anything the Mccain campaign tells you, the same campaign that is historically the most lying or mudslinging campaign in history. Now tell me what you know, like how can what ACORN did (the controversial part) , hurt Mccain or help Obama in any way? Really, I'd like to know? </div></div>

I wouldn't know where to start with this one... [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/crazy.gif[/img] </div></div>

Please start somewheres Skippy. ACORN is being accused of turning in made-up registrations. Okay they pay people to go out and register voters, when you start paying any "Joe Schmoe"? off the street you are going to have some dumb people doing stupid things like registering Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse for example. They hired around 13,000 registration assistance workers. If you had lost your job and had no income, would you sign up with ACORN to get paid to register voters? I would . With any business or agency that has that many workers, there are going to be some who want to get paid without really doing the job (i.e. Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse.) ACORN itself reported the made-up forms because they are required by law to turn in all forms to the election officials. You still following me?

Even in the cities where election officials have complained about ACORN, the applications they are talking about represent less than 1% of the thousands of registrations ACORN has collected. Now even if ACORN itself were turning in false registrations on purpose, wouldnt Mickey Mouse and company then have to show up to the voting booth, with ID in hand, then cast a vote for Obama for it to actually help him and hurt Mccain in any way?

What I have read on ACORN, is that they mainly register the young, the minorities and low income people. Now who would those people tend to favor? It isnt John Mccain. They have registered about 1.3 million of "those"/actual people. So I can see where the Mccain campaign would try and make a huge deal about it to take those votes away from Obama. But if you still want to believe ACORN is this organization out to kill Mccain and "fabric of democracy" lmao, then for the record John McCain was the keynote speaker at a March 2006 ACORN event in Florida. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img]