Well, this one is bad timing on several levels.
But the GOP sure could have used this story about a month ago at their convention. It would have gone nicely with Sarah Palin's jab at community organizers. Post-Lehman, this doesn't do much for the McCain campaign, though.
It certainly does make people turn a skeptical eye toward massive voter registration drives, triggering increased discussions about voter ID requirements as the good folks at Election Updates rightly point out.
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They seem to have been a bad apple - apparently this isn't their first problem. It's just unfair to assume that this makes other voter registration groups suspicious.
ReplyDeleteYes, it increases pressure for voter ID requirements and the like. But I don't think it really touches Obama. It's like trying to use the recent story that a US airstrike killed 33 civilians in Afghanistan to beat up on John McCain, since he was once a fighter pilot and still supports fighter pilots. People toward the middle of the political spectrum aren't going to buy those kinds of linkages.
ReplyDeleteIn six years of all-out effort to find and prosecute individual fraudulent voters--an effort that included close scrutiny particularly of ACORN-submitted registrations--the Bush Justice Department found only 86 instances of fraudulent voting nationwide.
ReplyDeleteThey did indeed use ACORN stories to rile people up and get Voter ID laws passed, and the Supreme Court went along. The argument is that the risk to democracy of an occasional fraudulent vote is at least as great as the risk of disenfranchising tens of millions, as the strictest ID proposals would do.
Incidentally, of those 86 instances of fraud that Justice uncovered, fewer than half would have been prevented by strict voter ID laws.
Meg
No, I'm not suggesting it should or does touch Obama. My point is the timing of this story would have been better for the GOP about a month ago. Now, in the middle of a series of debates and following the economic situation, it does them no good.
ReplyDeleteAnd you're right, Scott, it isn't the people in the middle who are going to be moved by this; just those already supporting voter ID measures.
Nice addition, Meg. Thanks. I'd like to know the denominator in that equation. 86 out of how many? A lot.
There have been several minor outbursts about ACORN recently, but it did not make the MSM until now.
ReplyDelete