Voter fraud: How real a threat?
In 13 states, officials are investigating ACORN for possible voter registration fraud and the GOP has unleashed its own efforts to intimidate poor and minority citizens who vote Democratic.
In Ohio, voters have registered under suspicious names like Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, and Jive Turkey. In Florida, one person signed up to vote 21 times. In Indiana, a single individual apparently filled out 2,100 voter registration cards. These are just some of the electoral “shenanigans” being perpetrated by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, aka ACORN, said Deroy Murdock in National Review Online. The group is ostensibly devoted to affordable housing, social equality, and other liberal causes. It may also be bent on “systematically subverting” this election, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. The 1.3 million new voters that ACORN claims to have registered this election cycle are mainly low-income, nonwhite, and lean strongly toward Barack Obama. “The big question is how many are real.” In 13 states, including swing states, officials are investigating ACORN for possible voter registration fraud. Their concern is justified; last year, five ACORN officials pleaded guilty to submitting bogus voter applications. “It’s about time someone exposed this shady outfit.”
Don’t look to Obama for that, said National Review Online. ACORN isn’t just his “full-time ally”; it’s his “sometime employer.” In 1992, Obama was director of Project Vote, ACORN’s voter registration arm. In 1995, he represented ACORN in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois. He’s even conducted training events for ACORN leaders. And during the Democratic primaries, his campaign paid the organization $800,000 for get-out-the-vote efforts. Yet now, he’s distancing himself from the group and its shady activities. Why isn’t that surprising?
This is a tempest in a teapot, said Alex Koppelman in Salon.com. Only a tiny percentage of registrations obtained by ACORN have turned out to be bogus, and phony registrations filled out by workers to earn more money won’t affect the election. No one using obviously “fake names” like Jive Turkey and Mary Poppins would be likely to “show up and vote,” or be allowed to if they did. ACORN, furthermore, is completely cooperating with authorities, said Juan Gonzalez in the New York Daily News. The group concedes that some of its more than 13,000 canvassers have indeed turned in “sloppy or duplicate registrations.” ACORN officials also say they have alerted authorities to irregularities, and fired canvassers who presented them with “too many mistakes or problems.” Republicans don’t mention this, of course. They’d rather conjure up scary images of “hordes of poor people, immigrants, and felons preparing to overrun the polls for Obama.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Crying “Voter fraud!’’ is “a strategic ruse,” said Andrew Burmon in Salon.com, designed to distract us from the GOP’s own efforts to intimidate poor and minority citizens who vote Democratic. In Michigan, one county GOP chairman says he’ll use lists of foreclosed homes to “make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses.” The Montana Republican Party is challenging the eligibility of voters in “heavily Native American counties.” In Florida and Pennsylvania, fliers are circulating in black districts warning that if a voter’s driver’s license doesn’t exactly match his voter registration card, he’ll be turned away—or arrested. It’s all part of “the Republicans’ concept of democracy,” said Joel McNally in the Madison, Wis., Capital Times. “The original idea of our Founding Fathers was to limit voting to white, male property owners.” The GOP, it seems, still resents that those halcyon days are over.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
What happens if Russia declares war on Nato?
Today's Big Question Fears are growing after Vladimir Putin's 'unusually specific warning' to Western governments
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
'Spacewalking goes commercial'
Today's Newspapers A roundup of the headlines from the US front pages
By The Week Staff Published
-
Quiz of The Week: 7 - 13 September
Puzzles and Quizzes Have you been paying attention to The Week's news?
By The Week Staff Published
-
How could J.D. Vance impact the special relationship?
Today's Big Question Trump's hawkish pick for VP said UK is the first 'truly Islamist country' with a nuclear weapon
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Biden, Trump urge calm after assassination attempt
Speed Reads A 20-year-old gunman grazed Trump's ear and fatally shot a rally attendee on Saturday
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Supreme Court rejects challenge to CFPB
Speed Read The court rejected a conservative-backed challenge to the way the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is funded
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published