As For Acorn

I hesitate to even write about Acorn’s voter registration efforts as late as it is in the election season. But, when I flip to Fox News they are often hammering on it and even accusing Barack Obama as being a part of it. We’ll soon find out whether there is any credibility to their accusations in states like Ohio and Indiana. And, we need to be attuned to accusations of voter fraud by Republican Officials like in Colorado. These accusations from both sides occur in almost every strongly contested election year.

Acorn is a non-profit community action group that is targeting registration of young, minority, poor and other previously disenfranchised voters. It is well documented historically that these voters have had all kinds of legally questionable, unethical, and plain fraudulent practices used against them to deny them the right to vote. Acorn is intending to prevent this using a low budget, one-on-one, personal approach – this is a good thing.

In States like Ohio and Indiana, Acorn must follow some rules that some times aren’t mentioned. For example, Acorn temps (low paid temporary workers) have to take down the information people give them without judgment. These States don’t want these Acorn temps to exercise the power to decide who can and can’t vote. They are required to simply fill out the paper work and submit it. There is no question that some of these Acorn temps have been unethical. Some have filled out anything, even inventing names, asking people to register more than once, or use bogus names like Mickey Mouse. These Acorn temps are paid on a piece-meal basis and they are after their 18+ names to get their few bucks.

Acorn’s response to criticism is that they make an effort to train their people on legal eligibility and encourage them to be accurate and ethical in their work. Many of them are and there have been thousands of new people registered. But, there have been some questionable results. In an attempt to off-set some of the problems, Acorn management does some sorting – flagging those that are obviously bogus, and even flagging those that are questionable before they submit them to state election officials. They feel this represents a reasonable effort on their behalf to correct problems.

In the end, it is the state and local election officials that have the responsibility of making the final decisions and each state has its own unique rules. As good, honest, ethical, and responsible as most of these election officials are, there is some real risks here. We have had some disenfranchisement by these officials historically with poll taxes, literacy requirements, no work release time, unreasonable residency requirements, denial of registrations because people can’t be reached to confirm information, hanging chads, pre-mature closing and shifting of polling places, etc. The Democratic Party’s election officials in Chicago were famous for abuse back in the elder Mayor Daley’s day. We’ve had disenfranchisement by the Republican Party as well. Usually, they are a little more subtle about it. They have even used the courts to get their way as they did with the Supreme Court back in 2000 Presidential Election which insured the election of George Bush.

Then, on election day, the real proof of fraud comes into play and election officials are in charge. If they have done their work correctly, most bogus electors will be eliminated, if they even show up, which is unlikely. What credible election official will allow a dead person or Mickey Mouse to vote? But, the other side of the coin is their responsibility to make sure that legitimate electors are given the right to vote. Photo ID’s, where required, along with a proper paper trail should result in qualified electors getting a hassle-free chance to vote and a fair election.

Fraudulent voting practices is a terrible sacrilege in a democracy and should be punished severely regardless of who practices it. But, criticism of good intentioned, low budget, imperfect attempts to encourage eligible electors to vote is not voter fraud, it is mostly fear mongering.

Hopefully, this election will be over Nov. 4th or by early AM Nov. 5th so that we don’t have a continuation of the polarizing nastiness of this election. That may be too much to hope for!