A Note On The ACORN Matter

Probably some of the sheets turned in by the paid circulators are padded and contain false names.

Sheets often, even when compiled scrupulously, contain errors.

Some of the claims sheets are 'fraudulent' are themselves based on illegality, because they stem from matching against Social Security data, which is not supposed to be employed for this purpose.

Current regulations require all sheets collected to be turned in, after scandals in '04 when some bogus Republican-sponsored groups did not turn in sheets collected in Democratic areas. Prior to this, ACORN weeded through and eliminated the 'Donald Duck' style entries, and other obvious mis-statements. Now they cannot do this. So a good portion of the instances giving rise to these charges are the result of a poorly thought through regulation, that persons of ill will are rushing to exploit.

These charges are stemming mostly from places where Republican political machines have control over the process, whether at the state or county level. Near to my home, the mention of 'Lake County, Indiana' as place where ACORN was 'engaged in fraud' brought tears of laughter, as that is an extraordinarily corrupt jurisdiction, that makes Cook County look like Minnesota by compare.

It is worth pointing out that the numbers appearing so far, hyped though they are, are not large enough to strike me as consequential. ACORN does not account for anything like all new registrations of Democratic voters, and even if all this is sustained (which would itself be an exercise in fraud by local authorities), our registration will be greatly increased, as will our turn-out.

ACORN is a very effective community organization, with a long record of success in housing and voting issues. It has been a target of Republican hate and disparagement for some time, precisely because it is effective, and good at what it does. This assault on ACORN has two purposes. First, to try and hamper the organization's broader work, and second, to lay an alibi in place for the looming Republican defeat, that will keep the Republican 'base' frothing with rage, and the sense of being cheated that is so essential to their emotional make-up. The Republicans are worried stiff that without governing power at the national level, their unwieldy coalition of working class religious bigots and wealthy free-marketeers will fall apart.

Ann Coultergiest is the most famous voter fraudster, and no one wants to prosecute her.

What's the big deal about all these fraudulent applications? I doubt "Donald Duck" will show up to vote illegally.

Sorry.

I dont care about the detailed explanation.

Obama's campaign shouldnt be defending ACORN and should be maintaining the same position they would if this were a GOP group.

So does loyalty....

"He did it for a friend."

Since the charges are themselves largely fraudulent and exaggerated, and certainly partisan, they have the potential for a serious backlash on exposure, and that is an opportunity we would do well to avail ourselves of in this contest. It is the riposte which most often strikes home....

"The art of war consists in a well reasoned and extremely circumspect defense, followed by audacious attack."

No one will trust you to fight for them if you do not fight for your friends and yourself.

I'm saying that we can expect a LOT of nasty stuff around registration and voting.

Obama's campaign must be 100% consistent.

I dont CARE how nice ACORN is or how close of "friends" they are with anybody. This is about LOYALTY TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE at this point, not loyalty to groups getting caught up in messy election stuff.

While i absolutely consider this minor stuff, all i am sayign is that Obama... the campaign... the Dems... must divest from defending ACORN on this because it will come back at us when the REPUBLICANS do something truly nasty.

The media will do its usual "both sides" crap.

This has secured me a modest reputation in some quarters as a stand-up sort worth having in one's corner....

Any time there's a voter registration drive there's always a few errors. ACORN had separated the ones they thought were loopy and separated them. As they had to turn them in there's nothing else they can do. This is not a story about a group deliberately trying to play games with the registration. They turned in the registrations as required by law and went so far as to inform the authorities about the fishy registrations.

What is nefarious is the fact that the Repukes are using this as an excuse to hit against a group that has done good work for the poor. The timing is extremely suspect and the fact that it's being done so close to election day in an obvious political ploy. This isn't new remember why the US Attorneys were fired after the 2004 election.

It sounds like you want Obama to denounce and disavow any knowledge of the group and that's over the top bordering on hysterical and not necessary. ACORN should not be thrown under the bus.

Regards

this information. And thankfully, you aren't an Obama advisor. I have confidence that Obama and his campaign advisors know how to handle this.

Pathetic.

ACORN released a statement recently stating that they pay their canvassers by the hour and NOT by the amount of completed registration cards. This is an important distinction to make because people are speculating that paying per card gives incentive for canvassers to commit fraud.

If recollection serves, the statement is available at "The Atlantic' on-line, if nowhere else.

I should have included this in my other post: http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/acorn_rallies_its_troops.php

You said it much better than I could've.

They've registered 1.3 million voters. Even if 25,000 are found to be bogus, that may seem like alot on it's own, but it's only 2%.

ACORN always works the poorest, roughest precincts with great dedication. I am not intimately involved in their group, but I know several of their organizers pretty well and they are all honest. I would not work with them if they were not.

A third reason to attack ACORN, pubs want to require picture ID for voting. Something like 10% of voters, largely older, urban and democratic, do not have a picture ID. The pubs want you to think that this is a problem because these people are committing voter fraud. Problem they run into now, there is no actual *proof* of voter fraud. If there is no problem, why fix it, right? So getting a lot of press about ACORN/voter fraud will cement the idea that voter fraud is an actual problem in the public consciousness, even if the proof never materializes.

you will find a vote caging operation. I bet my second favorite cat on that. They need a cover and this is a big wide one.

The simplest and most genuine reform of our political system would be to require voting, as they do in Australia. Nine-tenths of the swill that disfigures our elections consists in attempts to suppress this or that portion of the electorate, and secure over-representation of this or that other portion of the electorate.

than turning in our taxes.

:)

The price paid for living in a civil society, and not being subjected to rule without even the form of knowing consent.

True elitists stand out like stumps in a plowed field....

no matter how alluring.

Shoes being so expensive in these times.

:hi:

:kick:

That they are being attacked tells us the Republicans want to shut them down, and being Republicans, they aren't doing this out of concern for our elections. :)

Working grassroots projects on a day to day basis, sometimes it seems like we are not making any progress. But if the pubs are targeting ACORN and groups like them, we must be giving them a good scare :)

:applause:

Notice the language that is used in the reports "allegations" "investigations" etc. ACORN has NEVER been charged with anything. It is all smoke and mirrors. Think about the risk and the minute effect of one person trying to fake votes in say 5 different precincts-jail time to create 5 votes??? None of it makes sense. ACORN is clean.

http://www.acorn.org/
ACORN is the nation’s largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country. Since 1970, ACORN has been building community organizations that are committed to social and economic justice, and won victories on thousands of issues of concern to our members, through direct action, negotiation, legislative advocacy and voter participation. ACORN helps those who have historically been locked out become powerful players in our democratic system.

ACORN has long been the target of the Republicans, mainly to suppress voting

There were two cases in 2004 one reported BY ACORN and the other ACORN turned over all their records to assist in the investigation

David Iglesias and one other of the 8 US Attorneys fired were fired for NOT indicting ACORN
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4205876&mesg_id=4205876

I can't recap this any better than this:


http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/acorn_rallies_its_troops.php

Fact: ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control system in the voter engagement field, but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic.

Fact: ACORN flags incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in, but these warnings are often ignored by election officials. Often these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards.

Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card, so there is NO incentive for them to falsify cards. ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the relatively rare cases where our internal quality controls have identified this happening we have fired the workers involved and turned them in to election officials and law-enforcement.

Fact: No charges have ever been brought against ACORN itself. Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained through our quality control and verification processes.

Fact: Voter fraud by individuals is extremely rare, and incredibly difficult. There has never been a single proven case of anyone, anywhere, casting an illegal vote as a result of a phony voter registration. Even if someone wanted to influence the election this way, it would not work.

Fact: Most election officials have recognized ACORN's good work and praised our quality control systems. Even in the cities where election officials have complained about ACORN, the applications in question represent less than 1% of the thousands and thousands of registrations ACORN has collected.

Fact: Our accusers not only fail to provide any evidence, they fail to suggest a motive: there is virtually no chance anyone would be able to vote fraudulently, so there is no reason to deliberately submit phony registrations. ACORN is committed to ensuring that the greatest possible numbers of people are registered and allowed to vote, so there is also NO incentive to "disrupt the system" with phony cards.

Fact: Similar accusations were made, and attacks launched, against ACORN and other voter registration organizations in 2004 and 2006. These attacks were not only groundless, they have since been exposed as part of the U.S. Attorneygate scandal and revealed to be part of a systematic partisan agenda of voter suppression.

These are the facts, and the truth is that a relatively small group of political operatives are trying to orchestrate hysteria about "voter fraud" and manufacture public outrage that they can use to further suppress the votes of millions of low-income and minority Americans

Like most GOP election scams, this one is contrived. They take an isolated story and build it into a grand conspiracy, then sell it through media saturation. It's no different than Ronald Reagan's "welfare Queen" myth.

Yesterday I brought up the question why it seemed that Obama was defending Acorn and shouldn't he be distancing himself from them if they did something wrong. I was attacked by many posters, called a troll, freeper spy and many other nasty comments and while defending myself was blocked from posting. After being "Vetted" by DU (proving i was who i said i was) I was allowed back...however I still didn't have my question answered. My question blew up into a mob attack all because I posted a report that Lou Dobbs had on his show, but the CNN news report was also featured on several other CNN shows like Anderson Cooper's 360 and Election Center with Cambell Brown. So After not really getting much in the way of civil responses to my post, I was left with questions about all of this.

I tried to explain to posters that I was an Obama supporter and that I just wanted to learn more about this story, it wasn't met with great replies.
So after all that, despite my feelings of being misunderstood, attacked and unwelcome, i decided to come back and try and see if anyone else had gotten the chance to clarify this ACORN situation any further. Because despite how I felt, I still wanted to learn what i could about this issue and i did remember that a few people made an effort to answer my first post but not in a way that made me less confused about ACORN. In fact it left me with more questions.
Such as:

A few posters said that Acorn has 3 quality control checks before submitting cards. So why were thousands of cards sent in that were obviously fake with ACORN stamp of approval on them?
(This question has somewhat been answered in this thread, Thank you) But raises another question, why did ACORN not make the counties aware of the "bad cards"

Was the only reason the story was dismissed by many DU's was because they thought Lou Dobbs did the report? Because the report was done by a CNN reporter not affiliated with Lou Dobbs and the report was feature on other CNN shows that I don't consider Bias. So does that change things?

Why were all the ACORN offices closed and empty when the reporter visited them to ask them questions?

Why did this appear to be happening in multiple places?


These were my concerns when i made my post, these were things i was just trying to figure out and came here to fellow DUer's to help me clarify the issue. I in no way wanted anyone to think I was bashing Obama, I was posting trying to understand his connection to them and that way when i was asked about it by republicans i knew i could explain it in more detail.

In any case I want to thank those who compiled info about this and if anyone has any additional answers for my questions, i would really appreciate it.

And on a personal note:
I'd also appreciate if people gave new posters the benefit of the doubt and not make hurtful assumptions about them leading to attacks.
Democrats should be more welcoming to new people (not that i am a new democrat) But if someone who didn't really know a lot about this party and came here and asked questions, I would hate for them to go off thinking that democrats are unwelcoming, unwilling or unable to answer questions and quick to judge and assume the worst in people. It's just not a good message to send out.
So while some of you may dislike me or my posts, please remember to at least attack the post and NOT the poster.
Thanks

You need to fact check or ask for help fact checking cable "news" stories. They're pretty terrible. They don't check themselves.

It's sad and I remember a time when we didn't need to do that, but that's how it is nowadays. Just because the report is up at CNN is no indication that it's true.

ACORN is a great organization that is attacked by the Republicans because it is effective.

I will do that, but i hope other will keep in mind that part of that "Fact checking" is coming here and being able to ask fellow democrats about an issue you might not know a lot about or are unable to find anything about, which was the case on ACORN for me.

but again thank you.

DU can be like that at times like any other community and that's too bad.

We're usually much better than that. :)

running around. Damn these people know how to whip people up into a frenzy. So odd that they get immediate action and face time on television while years, and years of their dirty tricks are swept under the rug. I hope that this will be discussed more thoroughly in the weeks ahead so that the matter will be clearly understood.. in the same way that you have explained it.

Nicely said. Acorn is being attacked because it is effective and because they want to run with the "voter fraud" angle.

:thumbsup: