Advocacy Group May Have Registered Phony "Voters." But Does It Matter?

Voter fraud can happen more easily than we think (along with just about every other form of election fraud). In the past few weeks, the McCain camp has been hammering away at the voter fraud issue, specifically targeting the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a nationwide advocacy group that has made recent headlines for its vigorous campaign to register new voters—the vast majority of which happen to be poor or working class, and Democrats. For the $16 million ACORN has poured into the 2008 campaign, the agency has achieved some impressive results: The tallies indicate that it added 1.3 million new voters to the rolls. Of course, whether those 1.3 million registrations actually correspond to 1.3 million human beings is under investigation. In Las Vegas, investigators raided an ACORN office and seized documents based on claims of registration fraud, and authorities in other states are also taking a closer look at the agency's practices. Allegations are flying around that ACORN employees filled out hundreds, or possibly even thousands of registration cards with fake names, or the names of prison inmates. One man is facing questioning for allegedly registering to vote 10 to 15 times through ACORN (though assuming all the registrations were for himself, and he only votes once, his actions are hardly a crime). Cue the self-righteous blustering about the perilous state of democracy, which have been countered with charges that the investigations are really just a means of disenfranchising minority voters. Meanwhile, ACORN is rushing to restore its reputation with a PR blitz including a press release that states the following: