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bratboy wrote:

resedit wrote:

I don't have a clue what Acorn is doing, but it should be noted that 2008 isn't the first year they have been caught with their pants down with a ton of fraudulent registrations. It happened in Washington in 2006 and they had to pay a huge fine, and I believe it has happened numerous times before that.

Why do they keep getting caught? Why do they keep using methods they know from past experience cause fraudulent registrations if they are not intentional?

Because the vast majority of cards they collect are legitimate?

Are they? Did I not post a link to HALF of the registrations in Lake County, IN being fraudulent?
With such a high number of fraudulent registrations in a swing state that the republicans need, can you understand why the republicans might be a little paranoid about several of those early voting locations that makes fraudulent voting easier suddenly popping up in the heavily democrat areas?

Because they're not allowed to make their own determination as to whether or not any given submission is legitimate?  They hire people who are down on their luck...and approaching and talking to people is not fun work.  It's not at all surprising that some choose not to do the work.

And after being caught numerous times and having to pay significant fines, you don't think they would change their policy about who they hire? Yet that doesn't seem to be the case. Do you think they keep hiring those who make fraudulent registrations because they like bad press and paying fines? That would be the dumbest thing I ever heard of. However, hiring such people does allow for them to have an excuse when some of the real fraudulent registrations are caught, the ones done for the purpose of multiple voting in close races.

I'd guess that ANY business or organization that pays workers to collect signatures or pledges or anything similar deals with this sort of problem.

Do they? Or do the other organizations have standards of who they hire, standards they have for a very good reason?

If they had a quota system but denied it, does that not make them a pack of dishonest liars?

It's a national organization that likely has a very loose organizational structure at the local level.  Ambitious local mangers may ask that workers to aim for a certain number, or may even suggest that they must do so to keep their jobs.  In any event, I would guess these workers feel like they have to turn in something if they want to get paid.

So it's organization set up to allow this kind of thing to happen while allowing the "higher up" organization to claim no responsibility.
Kind of a "wink wink" structure, eh?

Hey, I'm all for banning the collection of registrations by private parties.  I don't think citizens should have to affirmatively "register" to be on the voter rolls....the job should be done by the government, and everyone should automatically be on the rolls.

But I don't see this as a problem.  Do you think the law should be changed so that these groups have to do their own screening?  D you understand WHY they're not allowed to do that?

Of course I understand why they are not allowed to do their own screening.
However, when you hire someone, you verify the sets he turns in. If they appear to be fraudulent, you call the police.

When these employees see their fellow employees being arrested for fraud, that gives them incentive to do their work honestly.
Instead - ACORN is giving incentive for bogus registrations - and it would not surprise me one bit if such incentive was done for plausible deniability with respect to REAL voter fraud - the intentional fraudulent registrations that they then use to ballot stuff when they get the voter registration list to see which ones got through.

Why else would they keep using a method they know results in high number of fraudulent registrations and costs them money in fines?

Last edited by resedit (2008-11-01 2:01 pm)

ANY business, organization, whatever deals with employees that don't do the right thing.  All of them.

Sorry - but ACORN takes the cake.
Hiring convicts out on work release to register voters - it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how that will turn out.

bratboy wrote:

resedit wrote:

ANY business, organization, whatever deals with employees that don't do the right thing.  All of them.

Sorry - but ACORN takes the cake.
Hiring convicts out on work release to register voters - it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how that will turn out.

This business is unique, because bad performance by their employees must be presented without correction.  Further, they have absolutely no way of keeping voters from putting down incorrect information.

It's a frickin' nonprofit that exists on a national level.  Many nonprofit organizations are notorious for having very loose central control and differing greatly from place-to-place.

And such loose control makes it easier for people with ill intent to use the system, no?

resedit wrote:

bratboy wrote:

resedit wrote:

Sorry - but ACORN takes the cake.
Hiring convicts out on work release to register voters - it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how that will turn out.

This business is unique, because bad performance by their employees must be presented without correction.  Further, they have absolutely no way of keeping voters from putting down incorrect information.

It's a frickin' nonprofit that exists on a national level.  Many nonprofit organizations are notorious for having very loose central control and differing greatly from place-to-place.

And such loose control makes it easier for people with ill intent to use the system, no?

Plausible deniability involves the creation of power structures and chains of command loose and informal enough to be denied if necessary.

http://webserve.govst.edu/pa/Political/ … usible.htm

Just making sure.

Of course, if we tried to pass such a law, the dems would scream "voter suppression" again ...

resedit wrote:

Of course, if we tried to pass such a law, the dems would scream "voter suppression" again ...

What strikes me as strange about all of this is that you apparently don't realize how limited their role is.  They collect registration forms and turn them in.  These aren't super secret forms that the public doesn't otherwise have access to.
They are scrutinized in the same way that any registration form is that is turned in.  Voting registration isn't a rubber stamp. 

If someone with a "criminal background" wants to cheat, they don't need a job with ACORN.  Similarly, someone that's filling in "Jimmy John" and "Mickey Mouse" or the names of popular athletes probably isn't the criminal mastermind that some apparently hope.

The fact of the matter is that, even when actual VIOLATIONS are uncovered, the authorities often decline to prosecute.  Thus, the idea that we need stricter laws to prevent certain individuals from ever being in a position of committing acts that are often not prosecuted anyway would probably strike some more intimately involved in these processes (elections or criminal prosecution) as being rather strange.

But hey, go for it.

bratboy wrote:

resedit wrote:

Of course, if we tried to pass such a law, the dems would scream "voter suppression" again ...

What strikes me as strange about all of this is that you apparently don't realize how limited their role is.  They collect registration forms and turn them in.  These aren't super secret forms that the public doesn't otherwise have access to.
They are scrutinized in the same way that any registration form is that is turned in.  Voting registration isn't a rubber stamp. 

If someone with a "criminal background" wants to cheat, they don't need a job with ACORN.  Similarly, someone that's filling in "Jimmy John" and "Mickey Mouse" or the names of popular athletes probably isn't the criminal mastermind that some apparently hope.

The fact of the matter is that, even when actual VIOLATIONS are uncovered, the authorities often decline to prosecute.  Thus, the idea that we need stricter laws to prevent certain individuals from ever being in a position of committing acts that are often not prosecuted anyway would probably strike some more intimately involved in these processes (elections or criminal prosecution) as being rather strange.

But hey, go for it.

Here are all the other places one could potentially file a fraudulent voter's ID in my county.

resedit wrote:

If I walked in to the county clerk as a joe blow and dropped off 250 voter registration cards, do you not think some eyebrows might be raised?

Happens all the time here though one could argue Mr Goode isn't joe blow. (Former Melbourne mayor and longstanding business owner) I know the Walmart or Kmart employee tasked with it at the time isn't any different from you or I however.

If the voter registration box at the post office suddenly had 250 more cards in it than normal, do you not think some eyebrows might be raised?

Suddenly as in the course of a day, no. Suddenly as in the course of a person walking in with a bunch of them yes. That is what the county service offices are for.

resedit wrote:

If I walked in to the county clerk as a joe blow and dropped off 250 voter registration cards, do you not think some eyebrows might be raised?
If the voter registration box at the post office suddenly had 250 more cards in it than normal, do you not think some eyebrows might be raised?
If you are an organization who's purpose it is to register voters, then dropping off all those registrations isn't eyebrow raising.

It doesn't matter, because they all undergo the same scrutiny. 

The point is that preventing ACORN or similar groups from hiring X, Y, or Z will not prevent those who desire to submit fraudulent cards, anyway.  They can be submitted through the mail.  You could form your own group made up of volunteers.  Then only thing it would potentially stop is ACORN losing money from employing people who might later take advantage of them.

bratboy wrote:

resedit wrote:

If I walked in to the county clerk as a joe blow and dropped off 250 voter registration cards, do you not think some eyebrows might be raised?
If the voter registration box at the post office suddenly had 250 more cards in it than normal, do you not think some eyebrows might be raised?
If you are an organization who's purpose it is to register voters, then dropping off all those registrations isn't eyebrow raising.

It doesn't matter, because they all undergo the same scrutiny. 

The point is that preventing ACORN or similar groups from hiring X, Y, or Z will not prevent those who desire to submit fraudulent cards, anyway.

It removes the motive of a paycheck resulting from submitting fraudulent cards.
Therefore, there will be far less fraudulent cards submitted.

In 2006 - ACORN submitted ~ 1800 registrations in Washington State. All but six of them were fake.

Do you think the ACORN employees responsible for submitting all those registrations would have done so if they had not been hired to collect voter registrations?

Another thing ACORN could do - mail the form to every address in a minority community, those who want to register then have the form and can fill it out and drop it in a mail box.

This isn't a difficult problem to solve.

They aren't interested in a solution, and I really do wonder why.

resedit wrote:

Another thing ACORN could do - mail the form to every address in a minority community, those who want to register then have the form and can fill it out and drop it in a mail box.

This isn't a difficult problem to solve.

They aren't interested in a solution, and I really do wonder why.

Right, not interested at all:

The defendants faked cards as an easy way to get paid, not as an attempt to influence the outcome of elections, said King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg. None of the phony registrations led to illegal voting.

"This is the worst case of voter-registration fraud in the history of the state of Washington. There has been nothing comparable to this," state Secretary of State Sam Reed said at a news conference with Satterberg, King County Executive Ron Sims and acting U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan.

State and local officials said they have signed a five-year agreement with ACORN that requires the organization to beef up its training and procedures for detecting and reporting fraud. ACORN agreed to pay King County $25,000 for investigative costs and acknowledged it could be subject to criminal prosecution if fraud occurs again.

Most of the alleged fraud took place in King County, whose Elections Canvassing Board on Thursday revoked 1,762 voter registrations filled out by ACORN canvassers. Most of the registrations used the addresses of Seattle homeless shelters.

Link.

I agree that they should have to cover investigative costs.  I think that provides plenty of incentive to hire better people.

My point in all of this--and what is abundantly clear about the issues ACORN has had--is that there has never been any evidence, indication, or even suggestion that anyone has intended to illegally influence an election.