Hate to say it - but the best thing to do until Acorn is 'investigated' might be to completely disallow ANY voter registrations from them.

AND have a one or two day 'amnesty'. Show up with picture ID and proof of where you live and register immediately.

No picture ID? No proof of where you live? Why should anyone believe you are who you say you are? Bet you've got a picture ID you show when you buy your booze and smokes, don't ya?

God bless ACORN. Without them you extremist right wingers would be stealing all the elections, not just some of them.

This is going to get really, really ugly.

Obama's response makes it clear -- ACORN hasn't gone rogue. They are carrying out his strategy.

They are going to clog the system, cast tens of thousands of fraudulent votes, and if Obama still doesn't win, they're going to scream "vote suppression" to the heavens.

There is no possibility that the electoral system will survive unscathed. One or both sides of the electorate will emerge in November with absolutely no faith in the electoral result.

I can't see any way that this ends well.

Only if 'stealing' means one REAL person = one vote, JFO.

Voter ID laws make it SO much harder for Dems to win, doesn't it? That's why they fight SO hard against them.

JFO - "God bless ACORN. Without them you extremist right wingers would be stealing all the elections, not just some of them."

Care to be more specific, which elections were stolen by "extremist right wingers?"

And the follow-on question obviously is... whicle ones were/are at the level ACRON is trying to do?

There is a step in between registering and voting.

A Board of Elections has to check the veracity of each registration.

Then comes the vote.

Perhaps we should worry about the Board of Elections checking the registration more than who turns in the registration because no matter who turns in a registration it has to be checked.

So, lets recap:

1. Registration
2. Check the registration
3. Vote

The focus should be on #2 not #1.

Summary:

Register, verify, vote.

JFO = JP2 = FOOL.

2. Check the registration.

Funny, ab. Got any proof the Ohio Sec. of State is able (or willing for that matter) to vet each and every fake/false registration?

You can always tell a troll by his ranting. Who refuses to allow voter ID? Who wants motor voter? Who manages to have more registered voters than total populations?

The Left can't win elections it has had to steal them since 1960 and before. Acorn can't save the Obama.

Racist Marxists are just so pase. So metrosexual.

How could Palin be so dumb as to think that focusing her attention on ACORN is going to help her and McCain get elected? The remaining undecided voters are NOT going to decide their vote based on the allegedly illegal activities of a group that is allegedly somewhat affiliated with Obama.

She and, judging from some of the comments, a whole lot of Wizbang readers hope that this would matter but, let me say it nice and slow, IT DOES NOT MATTER, this is not an issue that ranks among the top five of issues near and dear to undecided voters (ah, let's see, economy... war on terror... health care... environment... taxes... immigration... And where's ACORN? ACORN ranks somewhere just ahead of keeping the cost of a first class stamp at 43 cents. Focus your attention on issues that will resonate with the audience, deal with people as they are, not as you wish them to be. They don't care, so don't waste what precious little time there remains on this.

Can't you see the Obama campaign sitting and laughing to themselves "With all the issues McCain can hit us with, he's choosing to waste his energy on ACORN? What a tool." This is a repeat of Dole's 1996 "where's the outrage?"... and you do remember how well that went over, don't you?

some minimum wage workers paded the cards to get more money. there is no example EXEVR of jive turkey or terrel owens showing up to vote. it is just a false card that wont be used. on the other hand the gop supressed innocent americans, who had the right to vote, and disenfranchised them.

which is worse? this is a losing battle for the GOP.

8:
"Got any proof the Ohio Sec. of State is able (or willing for that matter) to vet each and every fake/false registration?"

"able" to ? It's certainly possible to learn how to verify registrations -- it's not difficult. If a Sec. of State is not "able" to verify registrations they should look for another job.

"willing" to ? It would seem like that would be an important part of the job of Sec. of State.

"each and every fake/false registration" ? you don't know if the registration is fake/false until they're checked which is why every registration should be checked.

JFO = bait.

Anyway, people have been stealing and stuffing ballot boxes in just about every country that has elections. Truman, in one of those decisions that would have major impact on down the road, allowed LBJ to steal the Senatorial election in Texas against Coke Stevenson, with 200 votes recorded in alphabetical order from Starr County a few days after the election.

JFK was the beneficiary of voter fraud, primarily in Texas as controlled by LBJ, and Chicago, as controlled by Daley, where JFK won by 9,000 votes out of 4.6 million cast. Daley waited until the next morning to report results, which is the LBJ model from the border states next to Mexico.

JFK then went on to make the vital decision to kill Diem in South Vietnam and to deny air cover for the Bay of Pigs. Diem was likely the only Vietnamese leader able to hold the country together against the North.

The Great Society had two parts; The War on Poverty, which we have lost after trillions of dollars spent (borrowed from our kids) and the laws that translated much of the civil rights movement into law, which has proven to be a great success by any measure; look who is running for President. Later on, Nixon and Ford helped expand both parts of the Great Society.

The point of that sorta history lesson is to note that voter fraud can have good and bad results. In the case of LBJ, a very powerful Senator started his career, the legacy of which is a mixed bag of greatness and stupidity. In the case of JFK, it was proof positive that the cult of personality over hard headed experience can have disasterous results.

Since 1960, most voter fraud has centered around Democratic candidates. Please don't even mention Florida unless you want to both expose your ignorance and get promoted to the legion of Obama voters who think Sarah Palin would be a great VP for the annointed one.

Hey stevestrum:

How could Palin be so dumb as to think that focusing her attention on ACORN is going to help her and McCain get elected? The remaining undecided voters are NOT going to decide their vote based on the allegedly illegal activities of a group that is allegedly somewhat affiliated with Obama.

Just in case you are hanging around instead of a hit and run, here is the reason, and it isn't dumb.

Look at my other post. JFK won Illinois by 9,000 votes and Daley delivered a 450,000 margin from Cook County. LBJ won by 200 votes and again in 1960 delivered the corrupt border counties by enough to carry Texas.

Remember Florida? If some dumbass(es) had figured out how to punch cards by the batch without leaving "Hanging chads," we might have seen Al Gore as President.

Voter fraud is important, which is why Obama has a major contract with a company whose board of directors is the SAME as Acorn's. Oops, guess that makes it tenuous. (not)

Adrian -

"There is a step in between registering and voting.

A Board of Elections has to check the veracity of each registration."

Exactly correct and well said. As was this:

A convenient loop when your very defense is your offensive strategy: Overwhelm the local systems and staffs, thereby increasing the likelihood of fraudulently inflating vote totals with multiple-instance voters completing multiple ballots.

Any more brilliant rebuttal?

So there are literally piles of thousands of fraudulent registrations, Steve? How many is that? Out of, what, several hundred thousand? Seems reasonable.

As "awesome" pointed out, someone named "Jive Turkey" can't show up and vote unless he/she is a real person... can they? If they can, continue bleating. If not, you might want to focus your attention on something relevant to the outcome of the pending election.

Gee, awesome - where would we get the idea that ANY of those registrations might turn into ballots?

BOGUS VOTER BOOTED AMID PROBE OF ACORN - New York Post
.
Investigators probing ACORN have learned that an Ohio man registered to vote several times and cast a bogus ballot with a fake address, officials said yesterday, as they revealed that nearly 4,000 registration applications supplied by the left-leaning activist group were suspect.
.
The vote of Darnell Nash, one of four people subpoenaed in a Cuyahoga County probe of ACORN's voter-registration activities, was canceled and his case was turned over to local prosecutors and law enforcement, Board of Elections officials said yesterday.

HB
Kerry supporters narrowed the argument for their candidate's loss to specific counties in one state....Ohio. The difference amounted to literally thousands of voters.

Gore supporters did the same, except to the extreme, in one state.
The difference amounted to less than Ohio 2004.

I know from previous comments that you have more than a casual knowledge of statistical analysis. This is not a matter of hundreds of thousands of voters.

15:
The U.S. can mount a successful invasion of a country half way around the globe but is incapable of verifying voter registration cards ?!

Having election results that people trust are vital. I don't think we should give up on the idea so easily (I know you're not advocating that).

stevestrum - "Can't you see the Obama campaign sitting and laughing to themselves "With all the issues McCain can hit us with, he's choosing to waste his energy on ACORN?"

No what we actually see is obama hastily scrubbing his own website to reflect his latest version of connections to ACORN.

As for your two "allegations," horseshit! ACORN has admitted fraud in Cleveland and obama by his own actions and other documentation proves his close ties to ACORN.

Adrian Browne says,

The U.S. can mount a successful invasion of a country half way around the globe but is incapable of verifying voter registration cards ?!

Don't confuse the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines with local election boards.

Have you ever lived in Chicago, Adrian Browne ??? BTW, thanks for acknowledging that TGWOT is a success. Pass the word on among your comrades at Kos and HuffPo.

Think of it as a paper-based Denial of Service attack. Flood the incoming port with bogus packets, and you can block legit ones, bringing the server to its metaphorical knees and slowing response times severely.

Now - I've got little doubt there are SOME within ACORN who are legit and sincere in their quest to makes sure everyone registered by ACORN are legit voters... but they're probably badly outnumbered by the "Let's flood the voter registration office!" crowd who would rather register Tyepogu Eatoin Shrdlru.

And as we've seen from the Abu Grahib incident in Iraq, one group inside an organization can certainly cast severe doubt on the legitimacy of the entire organization.

As I said before - at this point I think ALL registrations by ACORN should be considered suspect. One small pocket of bad actors I could shrug off - but this smells MUCH more like a concerted attempt to game the system.

hyper:

As "awesome" pointed out, someone named "Jive Turkey" can't show up and vote unless he/she is a real person... can they? If they can, continue bleating. If not, you might want to focus your attention on something relevant to the outcome of the pending election.

Sheesh, hyper, you hurt my feelings. Here I went to the trouble of noting several elections where a few thousand votes (or few hundred) was the difference between who won and who lost, and you come up with the lame comment?????

Urp, the conservatives are gonna win in Canada - did I get that right? Are the brake repair shops still busy up there. Has anyone been hurt yet? Have they caught the perps?

Let me shed a bit of light on registrations. I registered to vote by filling out a form. No ID was needed. I dunno how it is in other states, just mine. They sent me a voter ID. I go to the voting place with the ID, I vote. If I lose the ID, I can still vote by finally showing an ID. Nobody checked to see if I was a felon. Nobody checked to see if I registered under more than one name. It is what it is.

"God bless ACORN. Without them you extremist right wingers would be stealing all the elections, not just some of them."

God bless those crack heads for giving money and cigarettes to young voters for multiple registrations. And God bless the dems for possibly screwing over their own party with an indonesian candidate. Yeesh!

which is worse? this is a losing battle for the GOP.

awesome, why don't you call yourself savage instead? It's sounds much more cool and high school espionage! And you really are convinced the dems care what happens to you? It's much easier to "copy" someone else for your own profit than come up with your own ideas.

Got any proof the Ohio Sec. of State is able (or willing for that matter) to vet each and every fake/false registration?

The Court just ruled that the Ohio SecState must come up with a system to verify the most recent flood of shady registrations by next Friday. The SecState says it can't be done.

So what now? Should we just let anyone vote, with no IDs because that would be voter supression? Should we let the system be overwhelmed because some people are too stupid and/or sneaky to bother to get registered earlier in the year?

Why bother even having an election if we can't trust the system?

So now Obama has released a statement that basically covers for Acorn. I find that amusing and a bit of a fraud. It seems that Obama had no problem in hiring a guy to vet his opponent's petition when he first ran for State Senator. He succeeded in ending State Senator Parker's career based on such things as; printed, not signed, maiden name - married name differences, and other dubous ploys.

So I guess that makes Obama an expert on election paperwork and how to make it work for him.

There are more ads coming out against Obama that are starting to get media attention:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW2iZ1pD2G4

Evil prevails when good men do nothing

Hugh, I know that only hundreds of votes can decide an election. I also know that attempting to register millions of voters will inevitably lead to thousands of fake registrations. Do you have a better solution?

I know paleo-conservatives would prefer that get out the vote drives simply stop, and just let the informed Old Wise Men dictate the course of the nation, but barring that, what's the solution? (Obviously, it's to hire more staff to screen the registration forms/cards/whatever, but as that would entail more eeeevil government, it's better just to attribute the pending Obama victory to ACORN, correct?)

Not to split hairs, Hugh, but the invasion of Iraq went well. The rest of it (all but the first few months) hasn't gone so swimmingly.

Larry--the Conservatives have another minority government, so in order to pass a budget they will need to convince one of the four left-of-centre pro-environment parties to support them, or the government will collapse and we'll have another election. Democracy, parliamentary style! Also, even if they retain power for a full 5 year term (and, if history is any indicator, there is a 0% chance of this), they will never revisit the legality of abortion or gay marriage. Except for the tiny Christian conservative minority, nobody cares about those things as long as they're legal. They're also the party most likely to rid us of those stupid hate crime tribunals, which I'm 100% in favour of doing. Harper can also take some of the credit for ensuring that our financial system was on as sold a foundation as possible. He understands multiculturalism as a means to a stable pluralistic liberal society and not moral relativism, and that means Shari'a law will remain un-Canadian in the eyes of the law. I'm certainly not losing any sleep, as Conservative in Canada means mushy moderate in America. Still can't smoke pot in public in most cities, but hey, my taxes are going to go down--again. Sucks so bad waking up in this socialistic dystopia every morning!

#27: is that a bad thing, Larry? Would you prefer ignorance of the mechanisms of democracy?

hcddbz, you're totally right! Now, what should good men do to stop Obama? I mean, if he's actually evil, then shouldn't they use any means necessary to ensure he is denied the highest office in the federal government?

Why is it the lefties gracing us with their presence collectively can't see the damage being done by ACORN? These same people most likely screamed their heads off wrt Florida in 2000 (where NO fraud was discovered after exhaustive searches by various media organizations).

I guess fraud's OK as long as it fits your needs?

"hcddbz, you're totally right! Now, what should good men do to stop Obama? I mean, if he's actually evil, then shouldn't they use any means necessary to ensure he is denied the highest office in the federal government?"
He's not evil. Just the most unqualified, least accomplished person to head a major party ticket in modern times. Add to that the people of dubious character he's chosen to associate with, his sophmoric foreign policy and economic misstatements ("invading Pakistan" and "cutting capital gains taxes on small businesses" as two of many examples) and I have to question why any of you would vote for him.

HB

So you have a mixed bag government. That is not a bad thing. Some of the best governments we have had in the US have been mixed, with the Presidency controlled by one party and Congress by another. The political animals are thus watching each other.

When one party is in control of both branches, we seem to do idiotic things or at least things in excess, which is usually the same.

Where we are going this time is for both branches to be controlled by the far left of one party. We have two hopes; one is for McCain to expose Obama for who Obama is or two, for the Senate to have at least 41 Repubs.

Hypie -

"I know paleo-conservatives would prefer that get out the vote drives simply stop,"

I don't have any strong feelings about get out the vote drives - IF THEY ARE LEGITIMATE!

There's the rub, isn't it? Are you really arguing that ACORN is a good faith effort to get out QUALIFIED voters, regardless of party affiliation? The evidence seems to be otherwise.

Here in GA, you can register to vote when you get a drivers' license or when you renew it, or when you renew your auto tags. (It was mentioned this year.) You can also register at any public library.

If you WANT to vote, you'll have plenty of opportunities to register. It doesn't quite take a determined effort to avoid it - but the idea that some people are kept from registering BY DESIGN in a system that's got plenty of chances and places to register is simply designed to be appealing to the folks already inclined to believe the worst about our electoral system.

We'll call them the 'reality-challenged', since a lot of them seem to self-describe as 'reality-based'.

Oh, and Hypie? In your eagerness to validate 'awesome' and his idiotic observation that fraudulent registrations don't play out to fake votes, you must have missed this..

BOGUS VOTER BOOTED AMID PROBE OF ACORN - New York Post
.
Investigators probing ACORN have learned that an Ohio man registered to vote several times and cast a bogus ballot with a fake address, officials said yesterday, as they revealed that nearly 4,000 registration applications supplied by the left-leaning activist group were suspect.
.
The vote of Darnell Nash, one of four people subpoenaed in a Cuyahoga County probe of ACORN's voter-registration activities, was canceled and his case was turned over to local prosecutors and law enforcement, Board of Elections officials said yesterday.

Okie doke. But get-out-the-vote drives are still necessary as many voters, specifically minorities, are not legally allowed to drive, and do not go to libraries. So knocking on doors is the best option. As for verifying the registrations as legitimate, that falls upon the Secretary of State, right? So, if they can't do their job, hire more staff. ACORN's style of voter fraud would be short-circuited, while they could still work to extend enfranchisement to those least likely to vote who happen to trend heavily towards the Democratic party--I think that's what really bothers conservatives about get-out-the-vote initiatives.

"Okie doke. But get-out-the-vote drives are still necessary as many voters, specifically minorities, are not legally allowed to drive, and do not go to libraries"

Same old lines.....jeez this is tiresome. How the hell do they cash their checks, get to the grocery store, get to work, etc?

And in the end IT'S FRAUD....PURE and SIMPLE.

I'll be they'd find transportation real quick if people started going to jail. But like I said. It's OK when it's in your favor.

No, it's not okay. I never said that.

How many fraudulent registrations would be enough for you to say that a particular registration initiative was inherently fraudulent? 1? 1%? 5%? I don't know. But there are going to be some smart asses and some deviant a-holes filling out registration forms incorrectly or with the intent of stuffing a ballot box. Again: it's not ACORN's responsibility to figure out which are legit and which are not, so if whoever is in charge of screening bullshit registrations is unable to do so, that is what needs to be fixed. Otherwise, this will continue, because without get-out-the-vote initiatives, a large number of people are effectively (if not legally) disenfranchised.

hyperbolist

I was talking of Acron not Obama. We see something wrong then we do need to do something about it. Otherside we can nore keep liberty. Acron actions make it clear they should lose all government funding and be forced to pay back money to the government.

There are no excuses for their attempt to undermine the US through voter fraud. These are not exceptions these are coordinated efforts. They sue states to make review hard if not imposable to carry out verifications and then they do more of the same.

As for Obama, I do believe anyone who supports laws to actively deny infants succor is EVIL That unlike everything said about Bush is NAZI like. Those are orders the Waffen SS whould have.

hcddbz, you need to take up your beef with the people responsible for screening registrations as legitimate or not. ACORN is actually not allowed to do that. It's not their responsibility, and if they were to do so, they would be overstepping their authority. Talk to the Secretary of State (again, not sure if that's the right title for this person) of the states where fraud is being perpetrated.

Frank fills out a credit card application with Johns Smith's name and address on it. He committed forgery.
If he gets caught it attempted fraud if it goes through it fraud.
If he uses the card and does or does not get caught he is still engaged in an illegal act. If he gets others involved in doing the same act it is a conspiracy.
In the states I lived in if you fill out a voter registration for someone you signed it saying it true. Acorn freely admits there people are putting down bogus names.
It does not really matter, what lofty goals they claim to have it is illegal. The fact that the system does not catch them does not mean they have not committed a crime. Also since these groups such as ACRON work very hard to ensure Photo ID or other forms of identification cannot be used at the Polls or encourage motor voter laws ( same day registration and vote) we know they do not want the system to work.
There is no great mystery on how to register to vote in the USA. I have lived in NJ, PA, HI, FL and it been very easy to change registration. My parents are both immigrants since becoming American Citizens in the 80's they have voted in every election. Same goes for many of the other minorities and legal immigrants I know. (Since I happen to be both I know few)
Which is why, Acorn does not register a few 10's of bogus nor 100's but thousands.
The ones doing the illegal act is where my beef is. Especially, when that organization is using my tax dollars to fund their illegal activates.

Rant below

Hey but ACORN is nothing new.

Democrats have always been about helping minorities they opposed slavery.
Nope that was the Republicans.
The Republicans ran Tammany Hall since the 1790 where they prayed on immigrants by getting their votes they would give them jobs. Opps that was the Democratic party Darn.
Thank God those Dixie cracts helped minorities get to the polls. Nope they were all about voter suppression.
Then we had the racist Republican President Woodrow Wilson who segregated he US military and federal government , hold on you say he was a Dem no way?
George Wallace was the Republican Governor of Georgia, sorry he was Democrat
Hey lets not forget all those Democrats who helped Kennedy get elected. I mean they came back from the Chicago cemeteries.

Obama Change?,
Nope same old same old.