Opinion: Attacks on Acorn Are Unfair and Misleading

November 04, 2008

Opinion: Attacks on Acorn Are Unfair and Misleading

The recent attacks on the advocacy group Acorn’s national voter-registration drive are an unfair attempt by Republicans to win the presidential election, writes Martha Sanchez, chairwoman of the Los Angeles Acorn board of directors, in an opinion article in the Los Angeles Times.

Ms. Sanchez acknowledges that a percentage of voter registration applications gathered by the nonprofit organization are flawed, but writes that Acorn uses rigorous standards to vet the registrations, and the group fires any employees who falsify information on voter registrations.

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Comments

“Rigorous standards” is a bunch of malarky. The Indiana Attorney General has launched an investigation into ACORN’s voter registration tactics in light of numerous complaints of the organization’s voter registration irregularities. And let’s not overlook the Obama Campaign’s investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars into ACORN’s activities.

— Mike Nov 4, 02:39 PM #
Remember that simple allegations are not evidence of wrongdoing. A greiving daughter could sue you for the wrongful death of her mother, even though you don’t know either of them and live across the country from them. But the allegation could be stated in terms that require some investigation. As we see in today’s news cycles, allegations are enough to condemn in some people’s minds. The question is who are the ones making the allegations and would they stand up to an investigation of their own motives? Most of the time, especially in today’s political climate, these questions don’t get an answer.

— FMischler Nov 4, 02:59 PM #
Why is it always a right-wing conspiracy to look for the truth? Not all republicans are evil and making an “unfair attempt by Republicans to win the presidential election.” Not all Democrats are evil and communists. Maybe Ms. Martha Sanchez should remember that as a nonprofit organization ACORN is to be nonpartisan in their politics.

— Tami Abramson Nov 4, 03:10 PM #
“a percentage”?

Given the sheer number of registrations that were thrown out as invalid, I’d hate to see what the level would need to be for Ms. Sanchez to consider this a legitimate problem. Sweeping under the rug is not the answer for either side of the aisle, let alone a nonprofit that claims to be nonpartisan (or does ACORN claim they’re non-Parisan?)

It’s too bad we’re such a PC society that we can no longer call a spade a spade. Given neither side of the aisle has a spotless record, both could use some clean-up on aisle 10.

— Corey Nov 4, 04:41 PM #
If this were the first time the voter registration arm was accused of wrongdoing, it would be easier to consider that it was a mistake or a few bad employees. Unfortunately, there have been charges of registration fraud in at least 2 previous elections, and the problems were the same. For the managers to say they were duped by workers who on camera don’t appear to have the ability to mastermind such a widespread effort is hard to believe.

I think there is also an investigation of comingling of funds from the nonprofit side of ACORN and the voter registration unit. I just hope that we aren’t hearing similar accounts in 2010 and 2012.

— annetta Nov 4, 07:41 PM #
There have been only two validated cases of “voter fraud” in the last 20 years. There have, however, been numerous examples of voter intimidation and declarations that people were “ineligible to vote,” particularly minorities. That is a lot more of a problem than the hiring of a few “bad apples” to conduct voter registration. Furthermore, I don’t see any references here to the entire election stolen by the Republicans in Florida. See “Recount.”

— bswell Nov 5, 02:22 PM #

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