An ACORN community organizer received a death threat and the liberal activist group's Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized Thursday, reflecting mounting tensions over its role in registering 1.3 million mostly poor and minority Americans to vote next month.Attorneys for the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now were notifying the FBI and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division of the incidents, said Brian Kettenring, a Florida-based spokesman for the group.
Anyone who believes that ACORN is perpetrating "voter fraud" or is just plain confused needs to read Ric Hertzberg's straight dismembering of, what he calls, "Voter fraud, fraud."
During this election cycle, the Times reported today, ACORN has deployed thirteen thousand mostly paid workers, who have registered 1.3 million new voters. One or two per cent of these workers turned in sheaves of forms that they filled out themselves with fake names and bogus addresses, and, even though at least a hundred of these workers have already been fired, the forged forms have been submitted to election boards.
Sounds suspicious--unless you know that groups like ACORN are required by law to submit them, even if they're obvious fakes. This is to prevent funny business, such as trashing forms that look like they might be Republican (or Democratic, as the case may be)...
Sounds suspicious--until you reflect that the motivation of the misbehaving registration workers is almost always to look like they've been doing more work than they really have, and that the victim of the "fraud" is actually the organization they're working for.
Sounds suspicious--unless you know that even if one of these fake forms results in a nonexistent person actually being registered, now under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, "any voter who has not previously voted in a federal election" must provide identification in order to actually cast a ballot. This will make it tough for Mickey Mouse, even if registered, to vote, no matter how big, round, or black his ears. Likewise, members of the Duck family (Donald, Daisy, Huey, Dewey, and Louie) who turn up at the polling place will have a hard time getting into the voting booth. (Uncle Scrooge might be able to bribe his way in, but he's voting Republican anyway.)
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
People keep saying that they're afraid of violence directed at BHO, but I'm more scared of violence at the polls on election day. You have all these Republican "poll watchers" out there giving people crap (I know -- I saw them on election day 2004) and the urgency of this election seems even greater than 2004. Combine that with the huge amount of newly registered voters (which the GOP sees as a threat) and you have the potential for ugliness. I sincerely hope it doesn't happen, but your post makes me nervous.
The places to watch out for are swing states with Republican governance--especially Repug governance that has looked the other way (or aided and abetted in election funny business) before.
Like Florida.
One big difference from '04, of course, is that Ohio now has a Democratic administration in charge; one that isn't trying to impede the ballot access of African-American communities.
Andrew still thinks that Ohio will ultimately go to McCain, for, as he put it, a reason that "has nothing to do with Hillary or McCain" (guess why?); but I doubt massive electoral fraud will be the issue there.
Oh, sure, bring facts into it....
Color be biased since i have several very good friends that have worked for ACORN, combined years of service top 50, and really respect the work that they do... but this whole republican con job has me literally sickened.
Reading about the death threats and vandalism towards this truly outstanding organization made me cry (turns out my friends personally know the victims).
ACORN has launched their own information campaign to fight the smears: http://acorn.org/index.php?id=17855
To top it off, we know that this is just a repub smokescreen to cover up their truly diabolical voter suppression strategies and to create an atmosphere of mistrust, cynicism, and instability in our democratic system. For shame!
I cannot wait until they get trounced on Nov 4. In the meantime, we all have to phonebank, door-knock, and/or donate! GO OBAMA!
Nov 4 is gonna be ugly...that's one thing you can count on. these mccain/palin people are gonna be backed into a corner, and like any trapped animal are going to lash out. We saw in florida in 00 that legitimate legal routes aren't going to protect against stolen elections, especially with a right wing majority in the SCOTUS. the only thing to do is fight fire with fire: legal observers from the left at the polls. lots of organizations and unions are already doing this...my pops works for California Nurses Association and they're sending lotta people out to Ohio to be legal observers. If we want to vote, to avoid massive disenfranchisement this year, we're gonna have to fight.
But hey, worst case scenario barack loses, he can take over Jimmy Fallon's spot as Conan's replacement. Peep Barry at the Smith dinner? Killed it!
Glenise nailed it. This is not just a story about Republicans trying to make Dems look bad, it's about covering up voter suppression. We need to shine enough light on it not just to prove the Repub story line is wrong, but to expose voter suppression tactics that could potentially affect the outcomes in swing states. They did in Florida in 2000, and Ohio in 2004.
Yeah, Manhattan Democrats physically assault McCain supporters, and this proves how ugly the Republicans are. Do tell!
By the way, this isn't the first time computers were "stolen" from an organization while the FBI was seizing computers from the organization at other locations.
I have no idea how honest or corrupt ACORN is, or how the political thuggery is distributed on the Democratic/Republican spectrum, but the clueless surety displayed in this thread neatly mirrors that among the Republicans.
"...the clueless surety displayed in this thread neatly mirrors that among the Republicans."
Examples?
Oh, I dunno, Joel, howzabout this?
"People keep saying that they're afraid of violence directed at BHO, but I'm more scared of violence at the polls on election day. You have all these Republican "poll watchers" out there giving people crap (I know -- I saw them on election day 2004) and the urgency of this election seems even greater than 2004. Combine that with the huge amount of newly registered voters (which the GOP sees as a threat) and you have the potential for ugliness. I sincerely hope it doesn't happen, but your post makes me nervous."
Here's a person proclaiming to be scared of potential violence by Republicans, while Democrats are actually assaulting McCain supporters. I'd say that ranks as pretty damned clueless, if one assumes that the person is actually offended by political violence. It is far more likely, of course, that the person just doesn't like it when Democrtas are the ones getting stomped; if it is a McCain supporter getting smacked around, well, golly, what's so notable about that, right?
I won't go into the laughable aspect of a supporter of the candidate who comes from Cook County, and is supported by that machine, decrying the oppositions' gaming of the electoral system.
None of this, of course, should be taken as a defense of Republicans, another tribe heavily populated by thugs, crooks, and jackals. Wait....that ain't fair to the real jackals!
I don't expect that any Election Day violence will be exclusively dem-on-Repub.
But...it's the Republicans who are out suggesting, if not alledging, that fraudulent votes will be cast on November 4.
Democratic allegations of voter fraud have to do with voter SUPPRESSION, not of ineligible or duplicate voters voting.
Given that the Dems are stronger in demographics which have historically not been interested in voting, or have had trouble registering and voting for various reasons (the poor, AAs); the focus on both parties of getting out this segment of the vote/making it hard for them to vote is unsurprising.
The bottom line with the whole ACORN thing remains: Nobody has come up with a reasonable allegation of ACORN doing anything wrong. The allegations all concern folks ACORN hiring defrauding ACORN, by filling in false names (and trying to get paid for it). There is no evidence I've seen that ACORN itself is actively trying to enable inelegible (or nonexistint) voters from voting.
It's not nice to exaggerate, Will Allen. A lone nut assaults a SINGLE McBush supporter. You know all about lone nuts, right? Like the ones shrieking "Kill him!" and "Terrorist" at Palin rallies.
In any case, you shall have justice. The lone nut has a court date on January 23rd, just three days after President Obama will be sworn in.
Cheers!
I wish this were powerful enough to end the whole debate on ACORN.
Seriously, of all the voter purging, vote buying, vote rigging, ballot tampering, and what-not that takes place in our democratic electoral process, and during "the most important election of our lifetime," the only thing we hear about is ACORN.
You'd think all those people out there concerned about the ACORN story would take an active interest in the subject at large. But of course, no. It's enough to make you want to tear your hair out.
We just did a piece on ACORN's poverty work and the ridiculousness of the smear campaign in honor of International Day for the Eradication of Poverty: http://www.canow.org/canoworg/2008/10/today-is-the-in.html
just three days after President Obama will be sworn in.
How about not talking...er...writing things like that and instead asking people to get down to their local Obama office and finding out how they can help out (canvass, phone bank, stuff envelopes, bring food to volunteers, etc.).
barackobama.com
And ignore Republican troll shills like Will Allen. They got nuthin and they know it. (Thanks again for the Iraq Invasion and the wildly regressive Bush Tax Cuts (et al), Will. Like George Bush, Jr., they're awesome!)
This paid signature gathering model is exactly what was used to qualify the anti affirmative action initiatives in Colorado and Nebraska this year. The difference is that the fraud actually put something on the ballot that wouldn't have been there otherwise. In other words, right wing fraud directly shapes electoral choices. Voter registration fraud doesn't at all, unless John McCain's second graders and Disney characters are going to show up to vote. The double standard is awesome.