If you follow the conservative blogosphere, you are no doubt aware of some of these curious stories:
In Ohio, during the first week in October, residents could register to vote and cast a ballot at the same time in an effort dubbed "Golden Week." Needless to say, Democrats and their minions at ACORN pushed very hard to enfranchise thousands of homeless and severely low income Ohioans, mostly Blacks and Hispanics. Although the folks involved in this effort seemed sincere, some of the results, needless to say, were quite comical.
However, all was not well in Ohio at the conclusion of "Golden Week":
Cuyahoga County Election Board members grilled representatives of a community group Tuesday about their links to suspicious voter registration cards.
In one case, a Cleveland resident was registered to vote three times in a single day, listing two different addresses.
The man's registration was submitted to the Board of Elections by ACORN.
... Board Member Robert Frost said the group failed to follow guidelines in its own manual to turn over suspected voter fraud to law enforcement to investigate.
Election officials subpoenaed three voters to appear before the Board next week to explain their multiple registrations.The list includes a Cuyahoga County resident whose name appears on 22 registration cards submitted in six months.
Here's some of what the Cuyahoga BOE is discovering:
Barkley estimated he'd registered to vote "10 to 15" times after canvassers for ACORN, whose political wing has endorsed Barack Obama, relentlessly pursued him and others.
Claims such as his have sparked election officials to probe ACORN.
"I kept getting approached by folks who asked me to register," Barkley said. "They'd ask me if I was registered. I'd say yes, and they'd ask me to do it [register] again.
"Some of them were getting paid to collect names. That was their sob story, and I bought it," he said.
Barkley is one of at least three people who have been subpoenaed by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections as part of a wider inquiry into possible voter fraud by ACORN. The group seeks to register low-income voters, who skew overwhelmingly Democratic.
And not surprisingly, investigators are turning up similar occurrences in Las Vegas: State
authorities on Tuesday raided an organization that registers low-income
people to vote, alleging that its canvassers falsified forms with bogus
names, fake addresses or famous personalities. The secretary of state's office launched an investigation after
noticing that names did not match addresses and that most members of
the Dallas Cowboys appeared to be registering in Nevada to vote in
November's general election. "Some of these (forms) were
facially fraudulent; we basically had the starting lineup for the
Dallas Cowboys," Secretary of State Ross Miller said. "Tony Romo is not
registered to vote in Nevada. Anyone trying to pose as Terrell Owens
won't be able to cast a ballot." Agents with the secretary of state and state attorney general
offices served a search warrant on the headquarters of the Association
of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, at 953 E. Sahara
Ave. shortly after 9 a.m. They seized voter registration forms and
computer databases to determine how many fake forms were submitted and
identify employees who were responsible. They also sought information regarding current and past employees and managers. "We don't know how many (falsified forms) are here; there may be
two, or there may be thousands," said Bob Walsh, spokesman for the
secretary of state's office. Registration fraud typically stems from workers striving to meet their daily quota of submitted voter forms, Miller said. Most organizations require their workers to sign up 20 voters a day.
Fraudulent forms start filtering in when workers struggle to meet their
quota and either fill in bogus names or accept documents with names
that are clearly falsified, Miller said.
Likewise in New Mexico and in Missouri:
Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states.
Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. She said they were bogging down work Wednesday, the final day Missourians could register to vote.
"I don't even know the entire scope of it because registrations are coming in so heavy," Davis said. "We have identified about 100 duplicates, and probably 280 addresses that don't exist, people who have driver's license numbers that won't verify or Social Security numbers that won't verify. Some have no address at all."
And there's more in Wisconsin, Connecticut, and Indiana; apparently Indianapolis has 105% of its eligible population now registered to vote. Is ACORN being targeted unfairly? Not if you consider that ACORN was involved in virtually every major voter registration fraud investigation during the 2006 and 2004 elections, including investigations in Ohio, Missouri, and Washington State -- a case described by state officials as "the worst case of voter-registration fraud in state history."
How does ACORN respond to these allegations? By playing the "Republicans hate the poor" card, of course:
[Jess Ordower, Midwest director of ACORN] said Wednesday that ACORN registered about 53,500 people in Missouri this year. He believes his group is being targeted because some politicians don't want that many low-income people having a voice.
"It's par for the course," he said. "When you're doing more registrations than anyone else in the country, some don't want low-income people being empowered to vote. There are pretty targeted attacks on us, but we're proud to be out there doing the patriotic thing getting people registered to vote."
So, what do we make of all of this?
Although ACORN's goal is noble, their methods, quite frankly, stink. Paying workers based on how many signatures they have at the end of the day is irresponsible and an invitation to fraud. Can't ACORN find workers and volunteers (say, from local churches or high schools or colleges) who would be willing to sign up voters without being paid off? Is the value of the franchise, undoubtedly our most precious right, now worth nothing more than "What's in it for me?" And why are poor Americans so lacking in initiative that they cannot register to vote on their own?
This reminds me of the current row over requiring voters to present an ID at the polls in order to vote. "Poor people would be discriminated against," is the story we always hear. It's true that a surprisingly high number of poor people do not have driver's licenses (either they've never applied, or their driving privilege has been suspended, usually due to unpaid tickets -- don't get me started on that!) but it is relatively easy to get a state-issued ID card if you have a Social Security card and a birth certificate. Again, why are poor Americans so lacking in initiative that they cannot obtain proper documentation and get an ID card?
Am I understanding this right? -- the forebears of today's Black youth risked their lives to challenge Jim Crow and earn the right to vote for their people, yet poor Blacks today just can't be bothered to get an ID card or register to vote on their own? Is it because numerous stupid, pointless run-ins with the police and other authorities (those unpaid parking tickets again!) have created such overwhelming anxiety and contempt for the state among Blacks? Or do they simply think that the system is for suckers, because groups like ACORN will always be there to toss the system aside and guarantee them unfettered access to the polls?
A responsible organization would have reformed itself by now, and gotten rid of procedures that it knew to be an invitation to fraud. But ACORN-tinged voter registration fraud seems to be increasing, so I'm going to draw the logical conclusion and state that ACORN is not a responsible organization. When you add in the provisional ballots cast by by the same people who were fraudulently registered to vote, you have an organization that seems to encourage actual voter fraud. And the $800,000 funneled by the Obama campaign to ACORN through a front organization, Citizen Services, Inc., doesn't exactly give ACORN an air of impartiality.
Fortunately for us, county election boards take elections much more seriously than ACORN, and their efforts at identifying and discarding fraudulent ballots led the New York Times to famously report that nationwide, there was scant evidence of actual voter fraud from 2001 through 2006. That's reassuring, but things could be better.
I know that it is difficult to get poor and minority residents to vote. I don't have a good solution for this problem, but I am frustrated by how badly existing efforts have failed. Really frustrated. And I know that blaming the Republicans for everything is nothing more than a cop-out. Certainly some segment of the population does not want to see their own interests overturned in favor of the poor, and will work very hard to keep the voices of the poor from being heard. But does that justify voter fraud in the name of the poor? If every poor person in America voted Democrat, that would be fine with me. I really don't care how they vote. I just wish that their votes could be obtained in an honest fashion, free from race baiting, fear mongering, and fraud.
Okay -- enough ranting for now. Here in Oklahoma, the last day to register to vote is tomorrow, Oct. 10. If you are not registered to vote, DO IT TODAY. And do it legally, please.
...
ADDED: Michelle Malkin is reporting that an Ohio judge has ruled that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is in violation of Federal election laws:
A federal court ruled tonight that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner violated federal election laws by not taking adequate steps to validate the identity of newly registered voters.
The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge George C. Smith called the identification breakdown “a serious problem” and ordered Brunner to immediately comply with federal requirements to match voter registration data with the information in the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles and Social Security Administration databases. The court accused Brunner of failing to provide county election administrators with “an effective way to access and review mismatches.” She immediately appealed the ruling.
I suppose I should ask the question that many others are asking -- if Democrats are so certain that they have already won this election, why are they working so hard to steal it?
WizBang's Lori Byrd is also on the same page with regard to this issue.
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