ACORN

ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) pays people to solicit new voters. They are paid by the hour. According to news reports, some hound people to fill out registration forms, even if they are already registered! Some take names and addresses from the phone book and forge a signature, or just make up names and addresses. How can anyone be surprised? They have flooded the Board of Elections in inner cities with piles of voter registrations. Some percentage of which are invalid.

What does ACORN say? Only a few of their workers turned in phony forms. Yeah?

The first problem is paying people to solicit registrations. What can you expect? These folks are not driven by passion for the political process. Why work hard when it is easier to make up the data.

What's the harm ACORN asks. The phony voter forms will be caught by the BOEs of the city. The harm is the time taken by the BOE workers to process this crap. Time they could better spend processing legitimate registration forms. It is an insult to the system. And, this is not the first time this has happened with ACORN registration cards. Seattle 2007 is a prior instance.

If ACORN were at all concerned with the election process they would have changed their policies and procedures a long time ago. They haven't and they are hurting their image and their mission.