ACORN Is Not Committing Fraud

For the last few days, the Republicans have been trying to paste a label of voter fraud on the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). ACORN is a community activist group that works to promote the rights of poor and working families and individuals. They have taken it upon themselves to register as many people to vote in this election as possible.

They have been very successful in this effort, registering 1.3 million mostly poor people this year. But the Republicans would have us believe ACORN's effort is nothing but an organized effort to commit voter fraud. They would like to have all the new registrations thrown out, because voter suppression is the only avenue they see to victory in the coming election.

The whole thing springs from the fact that some of the workers hired to get people registered turned in some phony registrations so they could be paid more. One of the most egregious examples of this was in Nevada, where many members of the Dallas Cowboys football team were put down as new registrants.

But this was the act of a few dishonest people -- not an organized effort by ACORN to commit fraud. In fact, ACORN pointed out to voter registrars many of the phony registrations when they turned them in. Why did they turn them in? Because many states require ALL registrations received to be turned in. ACORN was following state law.

In the debate last night, McCain called this "one of the greatest voter frauds in our history". That is just ridiculous! In fact, the registrar in Clark County, Nevada said, "I don't think Acorn consciously sets out to turn in fraudulent forms." He went on to say he doubted any of the fake registrations would have resulted in fraudulent voting.

This is just the latest example of what has been in the last few years a Republican tradition -- voter suppression. As the number of Republicans shrinks, they know the only way they have a hope of winning this year is to somehow keep millions of voters from voting, or at least see to it those votes don't get counted.

They should be ashamed of themselves. They know this is not an organized fraud. They're just trying to steal another election.