Even for you this is incredibly stupid. Go go partisan-induced news blindness!
Really? From my outsiders POV it looks like the right is trying anything and everything to shut this organisation down as it’s getting people to register that would most likely vote left rather than right.
Lots of blacks and poor registered for the first time to vote for Obama. This scares the right as a previously dormant voter block has started voting.
Bricker, you paid Sam Stone to come in here and post moronic comments didn’t you? Come on, confess! It’ll be good for you soul.
It’s the most likely explanation. I haven’t seen them deny it yet.
Perhaps a thorough investigation is in order. If people are talking about it, there must be some substance to this rumour, right?
Can you show which section of that language describes fraudulent registrations? It appears to be dealing with valid registrations to me. The legal framework is that the organization is a fiduciary of the registered voter, and has an obligation to execute the registration on his behalf. I wouldn’t think that would apply to fraudulent registrations.
BTW, in the NYT article that someone linked earlier, I see
and
Both of these seem to contradict assertions repeatedly made in these threads, IIRC.
Well, then, OK, I’ll ask you: to what end? What possible advantage is to be gained? What was the nefarious plan to get some political advantage from fraudulent registrations?
First, what is the plan to produce voters to fill in the hole, how do they get people live actual people to go to the polls and advance themselves as Michael Mouse? Will they need to be provided with identification to verify their identity? (That could get expensive…)
http://www.lasvegassun.com/elections/2008/nov/04/races/
According to this, Obama beat McCain 531,469 to 410,948 in Nevada. Though we are not advised as to how many “hundreds” of fraudulent registrations are involved, they would certainly seem inadequate to the task. By a couple orders of magnitude. And, of course, the task wasn’t necessary, Obama won handily.
So, I will ask you, or anyone else who can answer. What could ACORN possibly gain?
I highly doubt if ACORN at the senior levels is explicitly encouraging voter fraud. And I think it’s likely that it’s mid & low level guys and/or cynical voters. I pointed out these quotes mainly in the interests of accuracy (& to see if I’ve missed anything).
But FWIW, it’s also possible that there is a political & strategic component as well. Because these voter drives are used to trumpet the success of ACORN in increasing voter registrations (as are similar drives by other organizations). Having huge numbers of voters registered by ACORN says 1) that ACORN is an important & successful organization, & 2) that causes and politicians that tend to be supported by ACORN-type voters are on the upswing and have momentum on their side. I think that’s an incentive, for a lot of people. (#1 would obviously be more important to ACORN than #2, based on the fundamental rule of organizations.)
I’m hesitant to answer this, because the last time I answered a hypothetical I was Pitted and cried for two days, as documented above.
However, perhaps with sufficient disclaimer, it will be safe. So: I absolutely and completely acknowledge that at the present time, there is no evidence at all to lead anyone to think that ACORN, or any person associated with ACORN, has done anything except make up registration information in an effort to get paid without working. There is no suggestion in what I’m about to post to indicate that ACORN has done more than this or plans to do more than this in the future.
But it seems to me that the unease over fraudulent registrations go hand-in-hand with the earnest desire from the Left to eschew any form of voter ID. So it kind of makes me smile to now see elucidator’s question about ID for voters, as though it’s a done deal everywhere and thus represents an effective countermeasure.
Speaking for myself, I’d say that if every state had a simple rule about providing picture ID in order to cast a vote, I’d be much more willing to dismiss any possible future harm from an organization’s willingness to submit hundreds or thousands of fake voter names.
But I thought, luci, 'twas your side that disfavored voter ID?
Oh, I never actually answered the hypothetical.
Here it is: in a case like the 2008 election, it’s virtually impossible to imagine vote fraud making a difference.
However, in the 2000 election, in Florida, it’s fair to say that 2,000 extra votes to one side would have changed the course of history.
So ACORN could, if infiltrated by people who desired more than just getting voters registered, conceivably seek to be the straw that tipped the camel’s chad, if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor.
Also, if ACORN is successful, they can get huge amounts of government money I guess -
Why this amount of money they received in a mere 15 years is only $126 million less than the $180 million that Halliburton executive Albert J. “Jack” Stanley paid in bribes to senior Nigerian officials in an oil deal for Halliburton.
LINK
A fascinating distraction, as well as a pointed reminder of my own lefty hypocrisy! We really must delve more deeply into this subject, perhaps when we are not discussing something else altogether. I thank you for the opportunity to discuss another subject entirely tangential to the issue, but prefer, for now, to stick to the matter at hand.
Perhaps another time? We can also discuss the infield fly rule, if that suits.
I don’t see it as a distraction. You say my hypothetical isn’t credible, because the lack of IDs would trip up those seeking to vote under the many fictitious names. I point out that not only is the practice of asking for IDs not widespread, but it’s one you have argued against. How is that a distraction?
If there are vanishingly few spots where a voter can be asked for an ID, then it’s obvious that the lack of IDs are not an impediment to the hypothetical scam.
I did some searching for this last night. I found lots of theories, but no proof. I still think the likely answer is simply that this is the most cost-effective way for ACORN to register as many poor people as possible. No election fraud intended - just sloppy procedures, and at worst a policy of looking the other way while the people on the street rake in as many registrations as they can.
Now I’ll offer some theories I found on the net, without personally advocating for any of them. For one thing, I don’t know enough about the American electoral system to know how plausible these are. But you asked so here are some possible answers, in order of what I think is increasing craziness:
- To game the polling system. By padding the rolls of registered democrats, the polls are skewed to show more support for Democrats and their policies than really exists. Most polls adjust their results by considering the ratio of Democrats to Republicans (i.e. if the state is 43/35 Democrat/Republican, the pollsters will use that ratio in the sample set of polled people)
It seems to me that this would only work if voters put their party affiliation on their registration cards. Do they? It would also work if the data used by pollsters is voter registration data, and not actual vote percentages.
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Some people have tied the fraudulent registrations to the Democrat’s insistence that voters should not have to provide ID when voting. If ACORN keeps a record of all the names they registered, knowing that the vast majority of them won’t vote, then they can send their own people in to vote in their place. Indeed, there have been cases where a fraudulent registration was used by someone to cast a fraudulent vote, and cases where more votes were filed than there were voters.
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Absentee ballots. The claim is that the people being registered are ALSO signing absentee ballots on the spot. Then the ACORN people park these ballots and file them at the last moment, or hold them until after the election and only ‘discover’ them if it’s close. This would be why in close elections there always seem to be boxes of undiscovered ballots found in the trunks of cars or in the corner of some counting room, and they are usually predominantly Democratic votes. Again, I think this is pretty conspiratorial and should be pretty easy to debunk.
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By flooding the system with bogus registrations, you inject a lot of ‘noise’ to help mask real fraud.
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To undermine confidence in the electoral process. Flooding the system with huge numbers of registrations at the last minute can overwhelm election offices and create mistakes or cause registrations to not get processed. This opens the door to electoral challenges in close elections.
I’m not saying ACORN is doing any of them, and most seem far-fetched to me. It should also be easy enough to check for the existence of some of these by doing things like correlating absentee ballots with registrations that were filed with ACORN.
Then Sam Stone, given that there are “lots of theories but no proof”, and most of the theories seem “far fetched”…
Why is there such a vast amount of noise and thunder about this issue from the right-wing Beckians and Limbaugers? Why are they screaming about ACORN from the rooftops?
Who is driving the ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY behind this, and what do they have to gain from shutting ACORN down, based on “far fetched theories with no proof”?
Your hypothetical is absurd for any number of practical reasons, of which the fraudulent voter’s ID is but a minor point, at best. Frankly, I strain to accept the notion that one as bright as yourself doesn’t already know what those practical limitations are, I strain to believe that you argue in good faith, and not merely for the rhetorical exercise.
How might such a conspiracy be organized, in secret? It would have to be secret, no? (I ask such questions in deference to your acknowledged expertise, as a recovering Republican and an attorney, there can be no doubt you are far more learned in the ways of skullduggery that a naive hippy such as myself…)
The more people know a secret, the less secret it becomes, no? Your conspiracy involves thousands, if it is to have even minimal impact. A few thousand votes is trivia in almost any electoral situation, outside of the city council of Buttmunch, Wyoming. How might this leverage be utilized? How would anyone know in advance of the voting how many bogus votes will be required? If you produce 1,000, and the bad guy wins by 1,001, what have you accomplished for all this effort and expense. Zero, zip, zilch, nada damn thing.
So, is it a few thousand conspirators, sworn to silence, ready to vote legitimately on election day and then scurry to another polling location to vote fraudulently? This strains credulity, this demands that each and every one of them is not only sworn to secrecy, but will not spill the beans inadvertently. I’m sure you see the problem with that.
OK, lets suppose we only have a couple hundred “ringers”, each armed with one hundred bogus registrations. These are going to be some very, very busy people, come election day, zipping at near warp speed from polling place to polling place. Oh, dear, we forgot: they have to stand in line when they get there, don’t they?
Your “hypothetical” is an absurdity that borders on an insult to the intelligence. It is why it was so roundly scorned when you first presented it. You claim that in the first instance you were merely offering a “hypothetical”, not to be taken seriously. Are we to take it seriously, now, then? Will the real **Bricker **please stand up?
If you can offer a practical scheme that does not bugger all reason, please do so.
You’re entirely right, Sam, those theories are, to be generous, far fetched. I trust you will not be personally offended if we offer them no more attention than they deserve?
It’s not meant to be taken seriously in the the sense of, “This may have already happened,” no.
But if you can’t conjecture any good reason to ensure that only legitimate voters are permitted to register to vote, I’d say you’re not thinking hard enough. Seriously: let’s turn the question around. Should we register voters at all? If we should, then should we have some concern that the registrations are legitimate?
If our answer to this question is also yes, then it seems we can agree that some ACORN workers did something that we wish to avoid, and it seems equally obvious that we should work on a way to fix that.
Well, so far, we have “lets talk about something else” and “lets turn the question around”. Is it too much to ask that we discuss the question itself?
If you simply use blind conjecture, and “think hard enough”, you can come up with an excuse for anything, no matter how far fetched. I think it’s reasonable to ask that people at least use common sense to eliminate the more egregiously ridiculous theories.