ACORN: The Making of a Mountain Out of a Mole Hill

After listening to John McCain and his Republican allies one would think that the organization, ACORN, set out to systematically perpetuate voter fraud on a grand scale.  Firstly, no one questions the fact, even ACORN, that there were hundreds of voter registration forms that were turned in with false names.  Some of these names were obvious, like Mickey Mouse, others were not since they were of people who recently departed this plane of existence.  Obviously this is a problem and there does need to be an investigation of how it occurred and those found responsible must be held accountable.  The problem is that McCain and his allies are making it sound as if someone is trying to “steal” this election and generate votes for Obama, since ACORN is a left leaning organization.

However, McCain, in a truly Republican tradition, is only telling you part of the story and exaggerating the potential impact of these “false” voter registrations.  ACORN hires people to participate in its voter registration drives and these people, in an attempt to fulfill their quota's and keep their jobs, created false registrations.  ACORN not only acknowledges this occurred but also flagged registrations it believed to be problematic and agreed, up front, to work with officials in vetting them.  ACORN did not want to simply throw these registrations away as this would be illegal.  Simply put, how would you feel if you filled out a voter registration card and an organization threw it away.  If it turned out a Republican's voter registration card was thrown away I guarantee you McCain and his allies would be making a fuss about that.

It is truly unfortunate that these events occurred and it is going to require government resources to deal with these false registrations.  However, a false registration does not equate to a fraudulent vote.  First of all there is no risk that Mickey Mouse will be leaving his imaginary land to come and cast a vote for either McCain or Obama.  Second, even for the names of the deceased, it would be required that someone to actually know that the deceased is on the voter rolls and then be able to obtain false identification to cast the vote.  The penalties for casting a fraudulent vote are steep, ten years in prison, it would be irrational for someone to go through the expense, trouble, and risk to simply add a single vote in an election where tens of millions will participate.  Finally, there is not a single documented incidence where a false registration led to a fraudulent vote.  This is just another example of where the Republican's are wrong on the issues and knowing this are trying to fabricate a scandal.