Why are Republicans going nuts over ACORN?
I’ve always gotten a laugh from Republicans screaming about Democrats or liberal groups committing voter fraud. Let’s set aside the Republican-led voter roll purge attempts, and not even touch the things that occurred in Florida in 2000 and again in Ohio in 2004. Each and every election, groups like ACORN are held up by conservative groups and pundits alike as shining examples of voter fraud in America. Their alleged crime, and it is a crime, is the filing of bogus voter registration forms. The McCain/Palin campaign would have you believe that Barack Obama founded and currently runs the ACORN organization. Far from the truth, though he does have connections to parts of it.
Now, let’s pretend for a moment that ACORN was tasked by the Democrats to file as many voter registration forms as they could, regardless of their legitimacy. First and foremost, Democrats don’t win elections without high voter turnout. Getting people registered is the first step in that process. Intentionally gumming up the system with thousands of fraudulent voter registrations is not going increase turnout, because the bad forms would cause inevitable processing delays. Secondly, just because fraudulent forms are submitted does not mean that real, live people with fake IDs claiming to be the voters listed on those forms are going to show up at the polls, risking felony convictions, and vote. Imagine the enormity of scale that would be needed to pull off something of that nature to the extent that it would actually influence a national election. I love conspiracy theories as much as the next person, but let’s get a grip here.
Rather than continue my rant here, however, I wanted to point everyone to an excellent post by Josh Marchall over at TPM that thoroughly summarizes what has and has not been happening with regard to ACORN, how it is being portrayed by the McCain/Palin campaign, and why none of it really means anything to the outcome of this election.
–Gordy
I can answer the question to this post’s title without even having to read what you wrote (turns out I did read what you wrote, but I still have the same answer to your question). Ready? Here it is:
Because Ohio is a battleground state and if they can get the word out early that there is alleged voter fraud going on there, they can scream recount over and over again (just like Gore did in Florida eight years ago) in the event that the electoral vote tallies are within 20 points of each other. Think about it. If Obama and McCain both have 259 electoral votes and then Obama wins Ohio, you really think the Republicans won’t throw the biggest shit fit in election history? And they won’t stop until, for the sake of keeping the peace, Obama concedes. Just like Gore did (and shouldn’t have done). Let’s just hope Obama has more resolve than Gore. That, or he wins enough other states so he can say “Fine, McCain. You take Ohio. I’ll take my remaining 333 electoral votes to the Oval Office.”