Red Herrings

You have the GOP and the right wing press spasming over alleged votor fraud, mainly about a non-profit group called ACORN. Now this week the police raided an ACORN office in Nevada. Wisconsin's own AG is suing the state a month before the election to force the state to go through every registered voter since '06.

You have a non-profit group, ACORN, with limited resources trying to get people registered to vote, which I think most people can agree on being a good thing, unless your that blatantly partisan that it bothers you that the people they register tend to vote democratic. You have college kids volunteering to go out and register people or getting paid meager sums to do it. A good number are probably guys just trying to get laid by looking politically active for their girlfriends or something to write on a job or college application. This group has registered 1.3 million people so far for this election. The things I have read about it usually cite something like a few hundred registration cards being duplicate or incorrect, at the most. The Dallas Cowboy's are registering in Nevada. This doesn't seem like widespread fraud to me. It seems like the work of bored kids.

Maybe a few people weren't into it and just went through the motions filled out some fake cards and then went home and banged their idealistic girfriends. Maybe some people registered to vote twice by accident. Maybe someone copied down an address wrong. Who knows for sure, but a few hundred out of 1.3 million seems like chump change. I would like to see any organization anywhere compile lists that big this quickly and not have a few mistakes. It is also worth pointing out that voting fraud and registration fraud are not the same thing, and errors on registration cards does not necessarily equate to registration fraud. So because there are some duplicate registration cards does that mean that person will vote twice? Probably not, and on the off chance someone does try they won't have much luck if the people at the polls are doing their job. Does someone filling out some fake cards to get their quota and go home mean these fake people will come out and vote on election day? Maybe in light of all this fraud we should forget voting and just let the Supreme Court pick the next president.

Wisconsin has the honor of being included in the list of states where this issue is getting the spotlight. A search of the articles from the local rag, here - here - and here, these people are being accused of fraud for some small potatoes stuff. A good number of the workers in trouble are in trouble for 1 or 2 registration cards total. There could very well be a few people out there trying to cheat, most likely there are. Nothing I have seen, except Fox News, make it seem like a big problem. Not one that can have an actual impact on election outcomes. Most of what I see doesn't even look like fraud but more like laziness. Mostly it seems like Republicans hyperventilating about an imaginary voter fraud conspiracy. Mountain out of a molehill. Maybe this raid will turn up more info, but my money is that it doesn't provide any evidence of widespread intentional fraudulent voting.

An update: A post at ThinkProgress looks at this issue some more and has a video compilation too.