Question is, who is funding this group? If you guessed the Obama campaign, you are correct. It looks like the Obama campaign gave the group, which is under investigation for voter registration fraud in several states, close to $800,000
Here's the story from the Washington Post
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/10/obama-camp-downplays-payments-to-acorn/
6 comments:
As far as voter registration goes, it can't possibly mean that those fake people will vote which is what is implied. The real culprit is the fact that the people paid to collect the signatures/registrations get paid per sig/reg as opposed to the hour. We have the same problem in Oregon.
In any case...this is what I am REALLY concerned about:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/12/AR2008101201234.html
*Please note it is from the same paper of record as your orig. post.
Rylie,
I agree with you that, yes, the national debt is a humongous problem. Why it isn't getting much spotlight in this time of economic crisis baffles me. The spending has definitely got to be brought under control by the next administration be it Democrat or Republican.
My issue with ACORN is brought to the forefront in states like Ohio, where folks can register and vote at the very same time with absolutely no identification. Folks from ACORN are literally driving around downtown Cincinnati, and picking folks up off the street getting them to fill out a registration form, and then TELLING them who to vote for. Some people interviewed have voted several times under several names, and using fake addresses.
That is where I have a problem with ACORN. I also have issue with the Secretary of State, and Governor of Ohio, who have sat back and done nothing. Perhaps because this type of fraudulent activity benefits their candidate.
***This is a long response, but my aim is to have a discussion about something that interests the both of us, the political culture in our Great Country. I encourage you to read the entire post, links and all.
As far as the national debt goes that is all on Republicans. Regan, Bush I, and Bush II all ran us into the red with major budget deficits. While Clinton gave us a surplus. You talk about spending being brought under control but where was Bush II/Republicans on this durign the last eight years? They were on a spending spree. where is the accountability? McCain has voted with Bush 95% of the time, how will he be any different? I honestly don't understand why fiscal conservatives haven't been screaming bloody murder about this.
So McCain was for ACORN before he was against them?:
http://www.mdc.edu/Home/Press/rally.htm
Here is a fact sheet from ACORN:
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 in writing incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in,. Unfortunately, some of these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards. In many cases, we can actually prove that these are the same cards we called to their attention.
Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card . ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the 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 criminal charges related to voter registration have ever been brought against ACORN or partner organizations. Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained through our quality control and verification processes - evidence which in most cases WE called to the attention of authorities
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
ACORN will not be intimidated, we will not be provoked, and in this important moment in history we will not allow anyone to distract us from these vital efforts to empower our constituencies and our communities to speak for themselves
Here is a post from a different blog that I think gets at the real issue (imo)
Get Out the Vote vs. Suppress the Vote: Who Will Win?
Image © Austin Cline
Click for full-sized Image
Speculation and debate over who will win the 2008 presidential election has become popular, but it's not necessarily productive unless you focus in on the most important issues that will influence the election outcome. Obviously a lot of burden falls on the candidates themselves: stellar performances will increase their chances, while huge blunders will shatter their chances. However, there are also important factors well outside their direct control which, barring any major developments, may be decisive. The largest and possibly most decisive factor may be the competition between Democratic efforts to get out the vote and Republican efforts to suppress voting.
The Obama campaign is relying heavily on their work to "get out the vote" to win the election. This tactic worked very well for them during the Democratic primaries and they are expanding on it across the nation. Volunteers and paid campaign staffers are working hard to register new voters and find ways to actually get them to the polls on election day. Above all they are focusing on the demographic groups which traditionally swing Democratic and which are even more heavily inclined towards Obama this year: African-Americans, Hispanics, young voters, and college students.
If the Obama campaign is successful in getting these groups to the polls in large numbers, he should win the election handily — and maybe even by a landslide. Even small increases in the right demographics in the right regions could help tip the scales in Obama's favor in a couple of key swing states, allowing him to edge out McCain, but a decisive victory alongside strong Democratic gains down the ticket would be preferable for many reasons. There is little that Obama is likely to say or do to drive these voter groups away, so in many ways just getting them to the polling stations to vote is more important than any speech he gives between now and election day. Pay close attention to how much of what he says connects to encouraging people to vote.
The problem for the Republican Party is the mirror opposite of the Obama campaign's: there is little John McCain or Sarah Palin can say or do to attract the support of large numbers of the aforementioned demographic groups, so their hopes rest on those groups voting in numbers as low as possible. Fortunately for them, the Republican Party has a lots of experience with successful voter suppression going back decades. Under the guise of preventing "voter fraud," a problem no one can prove is much of a real issue, Republicans pass laws and expend significant resources on preventing the "wrong" people from voting.
The "wrong" people are, naturally, rarely if ever white. Republican campaigns for voter suppression can be traced directly to efforts by white supremacists and white politicians to prevent African-Americans from voting. The earliest methods were more overtly discriminatory, like poll taxes and literacy tests, but the courts struck them down. Today voter suppression relies on challenges to voters because they change residence, because they fail to respond to misleading mailings, etc.
This year Republicans are actually targeting whites in significant numbers on the basis of home foreclosures — they anticipate that people who have lost their homes are more likely to vote Democratic. Students targeted by voter suppression efforts are also often white. Yet despite these efforts, racial minorities will remain the overwhelming losers. The Republican Party fails over and over to attract any significant numbers of minority voters by offering positive policies, so all that's left is to disenfranchise them through lies, loopholes, and antidemocratic activism. Authoritarians and fascists always benefit by reducing the number of people who have a voice in how they are ruled.
It is my belief that the election contest between Barack Obama and John McCain will, in the final analysis, prove to be a contest of Democratic efforts to expand voting through as many different parts of the population as possible, against Republican efforts to suppress voting in those parts of the population they regard as unworthy of having an equal say in government — particularly racial minorities. This also means that, in effect, a vote for the Republican Party is a vote in favor of voter suppression efforts against the "wrong" sorts of citizens — a vote for disenfranching minorities as well as a vote for perpetual war, for Christian supremacism, for white supremacism, for patriarchy, and worse.
Posted by Austin Cline
"Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome - good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."
---Paul Weyrich, 1980 (you should look up who he is if your not sure) Basically a founding father of the "Conservative Movement"
His comments only further validate the post above by Austin Cline
Rylie,
Points taken, however there is still a fundamental flaw with any law that allows a someone to vote, before the local government can verify residency, and citizenship like we have in Ohio.
No matter how stringent ACORN's controls are, they are still responsible for the actions of their employees.
But does hold thier employees accountable. Just to reiterate:
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 in writing incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in,. Unfortunately, some of these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards. In many cases, we can actually prove that these are the same cards we called to their attention.
Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card . ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the 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 criminal charges related to voter registration have ever been brought against ACORN or partner organizations. Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained through our quality control and verification processes - evidence which in most cases WE called to the attention of authorities
Rylie,
Sorry, once the videos of ACORN's big convention from the summer came out, that included key ACORN leaders pledging that the group support Barrack Obama for president, all credibility and non-partisan mission of the group is gone. With that, they should also lose their tax dollars. Not the first time my tax dollars are being used to fund something that makes me want to vomit.
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