D’oh! My fault on the website. Still, you’re a fucking sanctimonious prick right now on the other stuff, and an idiot to boot if you think your first cite was worth shit. Your second one was better.
This cite gives ACORN’s response:
So what we’ve got, again, is workers defrauding ACORN in the process of committing voter registration fraud. How again does this reflect poorly on ACORN, you fucking idiot?
Something tells me they’ll find a way to sleep through the night.
You want fucking hypocrites? There was some real voter registration fraud a while back in Las Vegas among other places, in which a certain “Voters Outreach of America, a company which claimed to be registering all voters, is accused of throwing democrats voter registration forms in the trash.” (http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=2426752&nav=168XRy6q) Outraged rethuglicans were conspicuous by their unconcern.
I don’t know, man. I feel a big, fat, sneery *ad hominem *coming. Trust me; I have a real sense about these things!
I see only news stories about accusations and investigations. I see nothing confirmed.
I’ve been wondering that. Part of the problem is that most of the links I hit are dead, for instance all the AP ones. But I certainly expected that I could have found something from the Post-Dispatch on the one I used the Free Press for, and I didn’t. And I know that happened. It was just before I moved here, and I’ve read other references to it in the paper since then.
Another part of the problem is that my search terms could probably use some refinement; I’m getting a plethora of riches, for instance 253,000 on “christopher edwards nevada”.
But I’m thinking that the biggest problem is that most newspapers just don’t leave their content available online for free for very long. I could go check the archives at the library next time I’m there, if you like.
As an exercise for the reader:
Which one of the following is worse for democracy:
Temporary worker defrauds ACORN by submitting fraudulent registrations. ACORN passes these along and flags them since ALL registrations done by third parties must be passed along. The appropriate officials toss the fake registrations.
Voters outreach of America registers voters, and throws away any that are democrats. Those citizens who thought that they were registered are actually not, and are denied the right to vote at election time.
I mentioned somewhere on page 1, “lax supervision and horrible mismanagement”, as I recall.
Quite frankly, I’m not going to get involved in debating if ACORN is better or worse than other organizations. Any illegal activity in regard to voting or voter registration is wrong, and should be opposed by all Americans, and the perpetrators should be tried and punished. If we could take that as read, I’d appreciate it.
Well, at least no one in this thread has (yet) tried to link ACORN’s actions, directly or otherwise, to the President, as the Wall Street Journal did. Funny how most of the posters here seem to realize it’s a distraction/losing argument (in that it draws attention and effort away from ACORN, if your purpose is to see them punished), but not the WSJ.
I’m sorry what? WHAT? WHAT?
I can’t hear you over the right wing blogosphere, Fox News, Beck, Limbaugh et. al screaming their lungs out about ACORN.
Well, gosh, I’m shocked, astounded, and disillusioned. You mean that the Bushies didn’t demonstrate their profound respect for the principles that make our country great by launching into an immediate in-depth investigation? In October of 2008? How can such a terrible thought cross your mind?
Anywa, here are some more links to ponder: (http://arizona.typepad.com/blog/2008/10/voter-registrat.html) (CNN.com - Nevada investigates voter registration - Oct 14, 2004) (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23638322/block_the_vote/print) (http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/press-3401.html) (Group accused of destroying Democrats’ voter registration cards - Student Life Archives)
A few quotes: "If this group, particularly leaders rather than canvassers, were specifically disposing of registration cards by Democrats, this could be a major scandal. This company was hired directly by the Republican National Committee. Identical allegations were made against this company in Pennsylvania in 2004. In that case, one of the employees handed over a copy of a script they said was given to them by supervisors instructing them to not register Democrats:
"If they were a Kerry voter, we were just supposed to walk away," said Michael Twilla, of Meadville, who said he has been paid for only eight of 72 hours he worked.
Twilla provided the Post-Gazette with a copy of the script he said he had been given.
It instructs the canvassers to hand unregistered Bush supporters a clipboard with a registration form, and to advise them the canvassers will personally deliver the forms to the local courthouse.
A lower portion of the form also advises the canvassers to ask undecided voters two questions: "Do you consider yourself pro-choice or pro life?" and "Are you worried about the Democrats raising taxes?" If voters say they are pro-life, the form says, "Ask if they are registered to vote. If they are pro-choice, say thank you and walk away."
The form also tells canvassers, "If anyone asks who you are working for, it's 'Project America Vote.' "
America Votes, whose name is similar, is a self-described nonpartisan voter registration organization sponsored by generally liberal-leaning groups.
Several canvassers said they had been instructed to skip the lower portion of the form and others said they were told to say they were working for a local employment agency.
Twilla said the canvassers were told to say they worked for Career Concepts, a local employment agency. Career Concepts was contracted by a Florida firm, Apple One, to assist them in locating temporary employees. A spokeswomen for Career Concepts last night said her firm did not employ the canvassers.
Sproul's role in voter registration drives this month triggered official investigations in several other states, with canvassers alleging they had been told to discard Democratic registration forms, leaving voters who thought they had registered off the rolls.
The firm has a contract with the Republican National Committee to register new voters and has operated using the name Voters Outreach of America. Sproul's chairman, Nathan Sproul, is a former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party. ""
"Although further investigations are underway in Missouri, it may be difficult to apprehend the alleged culprits because the crimes are no longer being actively committed.
“It is really hard to track them down because the voter registration deadline has passed,” said Howard.
The organization accused of impersonating the registration groups, the Sproul & Associates Managing and Consulting Firm of Phoenix, Ariz., has reportedly received close to $500,000 in Republican funding, according to published news reports. "
And while we’re at it, maybe you could point out where there’s anything except “accusations and investigations” concerning ACORN, and not a few lower-level employees.
From Frank’s cite, above. Getting close to 1,000 to one. Not too shabby, I’m thinking. Definitely not bad for an organization devoted to voter fraud. Oh, wait! Maybe they’re really bad at it! They’re trying to corrupt the system, but they are such liberal idealist wimps, they fuck it up and end up doing a great job!
Interesting nugget, further on, same cite
The gist, it would seem, is some suspicion that this was timed to be of help to the Pubbie campaign. (The article is dated Oct. 16 of last year)
I suppose they might, given the recent boyish shenanigans involving the Justice Department as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican National Committee, But lets not distract from the real issue, the vast and powerful conspiracy that is ACORN…
“Daniel Ray Erickson, an avid voter and felon, pleaded no contest Monday morning to charges that he illegally voted in eight different elections since 1998.
Erickson, 65, is scheduled to be sentenced in Hernando County Circuit Court in January for charges of submitting a false voter registration and eight counts of voter fraud.
Since 1998, Erickson voted in almost every major primary and general election, including last year’s gubernatorial race.
Erickson was convicted in 1981 of buying a 5-year-old girl for $230 and sexually abusing her in California. In 1987, Erickson was convicted in Broward County of fondling an 11-year-old girl while she was swimming.
Erickson registered as a Republican on April 3, 1998, according to court records. When he registered to vote he “falsely affirmed” that he was not a convicted felon, said state attorney division supervisor Pete Magrino in court Monday.”
St Petersburg Times
Copyright 2003 St. Petersburg Times
November 18, 2003
“Ronald Rocky Walker, 30, appearing in District Court, signed an extradition waiver and was expected to be returned to Placer County for prosecution within a few days, said a spokeswoman for the Toole County Sheriff’s Department in Shelby, Mont.
He was just going to the phone book and pulling out names and forging signatures, Richardson said.
Richardson said Walker faces 68 charges of forgery, one charge of grand theft, one charge of registering a non-existent person and one charge of registering a fictitious person to vote.
One of Richardson’s assistants, prosecutor Tim Sands, explained the case this way: Basically, he was a bounty hunter for the Republican Party who thought he found an easier way to make money. He made up the occupation, the birth date and the rest.
Walker could not be reached Wednesday in Montana for comment.
But Jim Dignan, chairman of the California Republican Party, denied Wednesday that Walker had any connection with the GOP.”
SACRAMENTO BEE, THE (CA)
Copyright 1992 The McClatchy Company
March 19, 1992
Not that it really matters.
It doesn’t matter, since no one in this thread said that voter registration fraud is exclusive to ACORN, or that ACORN is the only group that should be prosecuted.
Frank, I admire your intellectual honesty, but you’ll get nowhere with this bunch. I tried to lay out a reasonable case in GD, and the same batshit craziness ensued there.
The points I tried to make:
As a matter of law, corporations are responsible for the conduct of their employees. Employers have been found liable for employee conduct on numerous occasions, even when the employee was acting in a way not authorized by the employer. For example, a truck driver for Fed Ex speeds and hits a pedestrian - Fed Ex is liable, because the employee was carrying out work-related duties, even if Fed Ex explicitly forbids speeding.
An organization has a duty to provide controllership and take steps to ensure that employees are operating within the law. For example, companies that set up conditions that encourage employees to cheat will be found liable for cheating, even if they they explicitly tell the employees not to cheat. In ACORN’s case, they set quotas for registrations, and they refuse to check the registrations to identify employees who are turning in fraudulent ones. We’re not talking about one in a hundred thousand here - in some places, Acorn has turn in registrations where as many as one-third to one-half were found to be fraudulent.
Note that this is different from the issue of whether or not ACORN has to turn in all registrations to the government - this is a straw man argument, since no one has suggested they don’t. But nothing is stopping ACORN from doing their own spot checks of registrations for the purpose of getting rid of employees who break the law. Again, since a clear-cut remedy to the problem exists, and ACORN refuses to do it, they are liable for the results.
In the case of the current prostitution scandal, the fact that this happened in multiple offices suggests that there may be a problem with ACORN’s culture and oversight of its employees. It may be that the applications are not checked, and that there’s an attitude that any signed application is a good application, or there may be a ‘nod and a wink’ policy that employees implicitly learn, or whatever. In any event, ACORN needs to be responsible at least for cleaning up its act, or to show that it has already got good procedures in place and that this was a fluke.
It’s no mystery how to control this kind of behavior. Most large companies have internal ombudsmen, whistle-blower regulations that prevent retaliation against employees who come forward, anonymous submission systems for employees otherwise afraid to speak out, reward systems for tips leading to the discovery of illegal or unethical activities, and annual recurrent training into company ethics and what is expected of employees. At the very least, ACORN should be investigated to see if such policies are in place and in use.
This is not wild-eyed Republican conspiracy stuff - it’s simple common sense as applied to every other organization in the country. That the people on this board would go so absolutely off the rails to close ranks around ACORN is just sad.
For what it’s worth, during the campaign I felt that ACORN was being unfairly railroaded and held up as an example of why Obama, personally, sucked. This struck me as being a bit ridiculous. With the more recent stuff that’s come to light, I agree that they’re deserving of criticism, for the reasons Sam Stone just mentioned.
How about 888 fraudulent out of 1400? Still not too shabby?
How about 2,100 out of 5000? Are we still good? But it could have been more - the elections board stopped processing the registrations after they hit 2,100 phony ones.
How about 48% of all registrations turned in by ACORN in Las Vegas being fraudulent? From the same cite, at least 1,500 in Philadelphia, and investigations into fraud going on in 14 states?
As I said in my last post, I think it’s a big reason why many liberals are suspicious of the attention now: because they suspect it’s just another Obama attack avenue and that those bringing it up don’t really care about voter fraud, especially with the stories back in '00.
Though again, to their credit, most thoughtful conservatives around here seem to have been careful not to do so (at least not overtly that I can see).
Actually, they flagged quite a few, but no, it’s not their job to verify the non-obvious names and addresses. That’s what we pay the elections people to do, and they do it regardless the source.
You haven’t been listening to Shodan, who expressed contempt of the very possibility of such a law in this very thread. If he had simply believed one of the hundreds of times it was spelled out to him, often with links to the statutes involved, he’d’ve given up a year ago.
Care to provide some proof that the employees who submitted names like Mickey Mouse suffered no repercussions? I’m not talking about the non-obvious ones, which the elections people may have not even told ACORN about, but the stupidly obvious ones.
The point is that since ACORN employees continue to do this in alarming numbers, whatever controls ACORN has in place do not appear to be sufficient. Therefore, launch an investigation and find out. Surely you’re not opposed to that, are you? If it turns out that ACORN has excellent systems in place but this is just an intractable problem inherent to the voter registration process, then they’ll be just fine.