(Ok, I couldn’t help it.  I like acorn squash.)

Let’s deal with the ACORN rumors, shall we?  I think anyone who has worked with a non-profit will feel pain at reading this, because it is so often that when you are trying to do the most good for a non-partisan cause that bad nuts get into the batch.  Whether they are employees or volunteers, sometimes your own people undermine your goals.

Does this make your efforts worthless?  No.  Does that mean that your organization is the problem?  No.  Is is frustrating and disheartening?  Heck yes.

So, on to the reality check.  I’m using FactCheck.org and the ACORN website as my sources.

WHAT IS ACORN?

• ACORN stands for Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now
• ACORN activities in question are mainly centered around registering individuals to vote.  From their website: The goal of ACORN and Project Vote’s voter registration drives is to empower low-income and minority communities by giving them a voice in the political process. ACORN hopes that expanding the electorate will result in more candidates who appeal to historically underrepresented voting populations.

WHAT IS THEIR PROCESS?

• ACORN hires people to obtain new registrations, paying them by the hour.
• ACORN is required by law to turn in ALL completed registration applications in almost every state.  This means even registrations that are known to be inaccurate.
• ACORN flags incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when they turn them in to the state, which they are generally required by law to do.
• In states where the law does not require it, ACORN’s own legal counsel strongly advises that the group follow the same procedures, because “only election officials are legally able to determine the validity of a voter registration application.” 
• ACORN staffers call the phone numbers written on completed registration forms to make sure they’re valid and also take note of incomplete or duplicate forms. The group says that it alerts election officials to forms that look fishy when it sends them in.

ACORN VOTER FRAUD

John McCain stated in the final debate that ACORN is “now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.”  

Goodness, McCain - embellish much?  FactCheck.org disagrees with this outlandish statement about the fabric of democracy being unwoven by voter registration.   But I’ll put it together for all of us (majority of information from FactCheck.org):

• Voter fraud is inaccurate.  It’s voter registration fraud.  This means that registrations are coming in that are invalid. It does not mean that people will get to vote illegally or stuff ballot boxes.  It means that inaccurate registrations have been made - for dead people, people underage, fictitious people.  People who WILL NOT VOTE. 
• No ACORN office has ever been found to have perpetrated fraud.  Individuals who worked for ACORN have been found to have performed registration fraud, and the majority of them were fired by ACORN and have pled guilty. 
• Dan Satterberg, the Republican prosecuting attorney in King County, Wash., said, “Joint federal and state investigation has determined that this scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting.  Instead, the defendants cheated their employer, ACORN, to get paid for work they did not actually perform.“

OBAMA’S CONNECTION TO ACORN

FactCheck.org says: 

The ad says that “Obama’s ties to ACORN run long and deep” – that he “taught classes” for the group, paid a “front” $800,000 for get-out-the-vote efforts, and was endorsed by ACORN for president.

That last one’s true – ACORN’s political action committee did offer an Obama endorsement.It’s also true that Obama has worked with the group in the past. In 1995, Obama helped represent ACORN in a successful lawsuit to require the state of Illinois to offer “motor voter” registration at DMV offices. Obama has said [but no longer says- LEB] that this is his only association with ACORN, but that’s not the case – he has had other, though less direct[emphasis mine], interactions with the organization. After law school, Obama directed a Chicago registration drive for Project Vote, which works closely with ACORN. And when Obama was on the board of directors of the Woods Fund, the foundation gave grants of $75,000 in 2001 and $70,000 in 2002 to ACORN’s Chicago office. The McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee cite an additional grant of $45,000 in 2000. The Woods Fund has not responded to our calls about their 2000 grants. The Obama campaign also paid Citizens Services Inc., a group affiliated with ACORN, more than $800,000 for get-out-the-vote (not voter registration) efforts during the primary election. The nature of CSI’s services was initially misrepresented on the Obama campaign’s disclosures to the Federal Election Commission, which the campaign describes as an oversight. The Obama campaign says it has not been involved with ACORN during the general election. As for “teaching classes” for the group, the McCain campaign cites a March 2008 Newsday article, which says that ACORN organizer Madeleine Talbot “initially considered Obama a competitor” when both were working to get asbestos insulation removed from a Chicago housing project, but that “she became so impressed with his work that she invited him to help train her staff.” Newsday does not say whether Obama accepted the invitation. An article by Chicago alderman Toni Foulkes says that “we [ACORN] have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year” between 1992 and 2004, when the article was written. The Obama campaign says that Obama participated in two, one-hour trainings in a volunteer capacity. Foulkes could not be reached for comment.

So, before we get all wound up in trying to pin massive voter fraud on anyone, perhaps we should do our own reality check of the facts. 

Can we get back to talking about real issues again?