Look is it newsworthy? Yes. Should ACORN take some heat for it? Yes. Can ACORN take some lessons on screening personnel from this? Of course. Is it indicitive of ACORNs purpose and/or actual accomplishments? No.
That makes more sense, and I see where you’re coming from on this.
I think these are fair questions, and will attempt to answer them even though it is primarily engaging in supposition on both of our parts.
As to why they pay per registration is likely because it is the simplest and most cost-effective method of compensation. Obviously paying per hour is not acceptable if you suspect your workforce may be unmotivated. Paying per valid registration (or at least non-suspicious registration) requires that you keep track of who submitted each registration up until the time that it is checked. This is certainly possible but probably would be more costly than simply bundling the registrations at the local level, paying the submitter, and then validating them at some centralized location.
I agree that this is suspect behavior. I could perhaps see a situation where the policy was to make one submission of registration to allow for the maximum amount of time to register new voters. But in general it does seem to be an attempt to overwhelm the system.
Of course same-day registration would eliminate all of these issues. Or hell go the ND route and don’t require registration at all - show up with proof that you live in the district and cast your ballot. But I think we both know why these are not proposed as a solution to ACORN’s activities.
Okay… So what should ACORN’s liability be if this practice has been repeatedly shown to result in fraudulent registrations being turned in to election officials - and ACORN refuses to modify the policy?
An analogy would be a private company paying its employees to remove toxic waste from a facility, paying them by the pound of waste removed, and not checking to see where they were taking it. If they continued such a policy after many such employees were found to be breaking the law by dumping the waste in non-approved locations, would you not hold the company liable if they did not clean up their procedures and remove the system that gave incentives to employees who break the law?
I don’t see how that helps maximize the time to register new voters, unless they are only allowed one submission per election season. But that’s not the case. They could easily submit registrations in small bundles the day after they receive them from the field. There’s no rule that says they all have to come in at once.
The U.S. election system is screwed up in many ways. As a Canadian, I’m just baffled by how difficult Americans find the whole process. Voting and counting votes just isn’t that hard. I suspect the U.S. system is so convoluted because so many different groups try to game the system and laws are passed willy-nilly to benefit one group over another and over time it’s become a patchwork mess.
Take your problem with electronic voting machines. In Canada, we fill in a ballot manually. We hand it to the attendant, and it goes into an electronic machine. If we made an error, such as filling in two boxes or not marking plainly enough, the machine rejects the card and we go back and fill out a new one. If the machine accepts it, the vote is tabulated electronically, but the written card goes into a file which is kept to cross-check the machine count. So you have an instant electronic tally AND a paper trail. There are no spoiled ballots because the voter is right there when the machine accepts the ballot or rejects it. Where’s the problem?
But that’s a hijack. Back to the ACORN bashing.
I can sort of understand why this thread has moved in the direction of voter registrations, but the OP was about the willingness pf specific ACORN employees to turn a blind eye to the creation of a brothel and actively assist the brothel owner in concealing his true business, and in concealing the use of child prostitutes.
When I posted, the reports were that this was a solo incident. Now there are two such incidents. It seems reasonable to ask, as others have, if ACORN has a corporate culture that encourages looking the other way when people ask for help doing illegal stuff.
And you, apparently, don’t know how to read. I stated in my first post that my speculations about ACORN as an organization were based on the assumption that the tapes portrayed the situation accurately. I did not assert that they did. My initial post was in response to people who were defending them using the same set of assumptions. I have been eager to believe nothing, actually.
Try again. This time, use less hand waiving.
All right, all right, I confess! I’ll tell you what’s wrong with ACORN, and so many other lefty populist organizations.
They trust poor people. This is a political bias, to be sure. They hire poor people whenever they get the chance, they feel an obligation to do so. And so, they get screwed over. Time and again, and again, because they will keep doing it. They will not stick thier nose up the applicant’s ass and ferret out every possible misdemeanor, because they trust poor people.
Now, of course, the opposite prejudice is a tendency to distrust guys with expensive suits and spreadsheets, financial types, and so forth. A blind, unfounded prejudice, to be sure, since we all know that these men are the very paragons of virtue and fair dealing.
ACORN is foolish to trust the poor without suspicion. Granted. I confess. Poor people are no less likely to screw you than a white guy in a suit, they just aren’t as good at it.
It has been explained to you repeatedly that they are legally required to submit them anyway. Gawdamighty. :rolleyes:
Then I’m still trying to figure out what legitimate reason you had for starting this thread.
I like how Blackwater is a “conservative thing” and Acorn is a “liberal thing.” Acorn doesn’t have anything to do with anything. Scaremongers trying to make Acorn out like a branch of the Democratic party are overreaching.
Have none of you realized that Bricker was attempting to pay a compliment with his Backwater post? That’s how I read it, anyway.
A blackhanded compliment?
The answer is no. Sorry to disappoint you.
ACORN doesn’t have a CHOICE about the policy. Please inform yourself. They are required BY LAW to submit the bogus registrations. They are not ALLOWED to decide what registrations are or or not valid. All they can do is flag the ones they are suspicious about, which they do CONSISTENTLY, and which is the reason we know about them in the first place.
What part of this is not getting through to you?
One more time -
ACORN is REQUIRED BY LAW to submit all registration forms, regardless of how bogus they look. It’s not their policy to change, m’kay. It’s the law.
Could you please acknowledge that you understand this point.
[quote=“C3, post:8, topic:509681”]
They don’t have such a corporate culture? For sure?
So you’d be very surprised to hear of a third or fourth similar incident?
Give it up, Bricker.
They do not. Sorry to piss in your cheerios.
Not a bit. Four people out of thousands is a very tiny sample. I’m sure I could find at least four cops who have taken bribes from pimps. That doesn’t mean that there is a culture in law enforcement that encourages taking bribes from pimps.
Unless you can produce a shred of evidence that any of the ACORN employees involved in this story were acting with the knowledge, approval or encouragement of ACORN, either tacitly or explicitly (and to what end, by the way?), then all you’re doing is try to score cheap political points against ACORN, and smear people and a “culture” that you don’t actually know a damn thing about.
It seems to me you’re not applying the same strict standard when you talk about the guilt of Bush and Cheney for various acts committed by others.
I’d call it more of a consistent failing of the nonprofit style organization, where people have to deal directly with the crazy fucking end of real life on the streets and all kinds of loonybots, without making judgments and treating them all equally.
You kind of have to give the lowest-end of your employees the highest possible autonomy.
What are you talking about? Specifically – what are you talking about?