(How else are they gonna be able to 'win' elections at this point?)

Brad Friedman Byon 5/9/2009, 4:35pm PT

Can't tell you how sick I am of the GOP's ACORN nonsense, having long ago exhausted myself in debunking the entire GOP scam to try and use the group as a stalking horse to support their own insidious efforts at imposing polling place Photo ID restrictions in hopes of doing nothing more than keeping 20 to 30 million legal, largely Democratic-leaning voters from being able to cast their legal votes, because they don't own the type of ID that would be required to vote under these draconian, unnecessary, Jim Crow disenfranchisement laws.

But, as a quick perusal of recent 'Daily Voting News' articles will show, efforts are still being doubled, and redoubled, by the GOP in state legislatures across the country in hopes of passing such restrictions into law. It seems these laws, meant to combat non-existent "voter fraud," are the Republicans' last, best hope to be able to actually "win" elections at all these days.

So, with all of that in mind...here's the latest AP report on charges filed against ACORN workers in PA on Thursday, for falsifying voter registration forms.

As I replied to the person who sent me the link, please note in the poorly reported story: "There's no evidence anybody voted illegally or was denied a vote because of the scam."

Further, "the scam" was carried out by workers, in violation of ACORN's policies (akin to workers at Wal-Mart stealing items off the shelf --- you'd hardly charge Wal-Mart with "theft" in that incident), and was discovered, in no small part, because ACORN themselves alerted authorities to "the scam," and cooperated with law enforcement in helping to bring charges against the fraudsters. Of course, that hasn't stopped Fox "News" from "reporting" the story as if ACORN themselves (versus their workers) had been charged.

ACORN workers "registered some 38,000 new voters in southwestern Pennsylvania...last year", according to the AP article. The charges now filed against 6 state workers (out of the group's 13,000 employees nationwide) involve 51 registration cards suspected of having been forged by the workers. And, again: "There's no evidence anybody voted illegally or was denied a vote because of the scam."

The ACORN thing is indeed a "scam," but not the one that the AP report --- and the GOP and Fox "News" opportunists hoping to use it to disenfranchise voters --- paint it as.

Readers of The BRAD BLOG likely already know all of the above. And so it bores me no end to have to keep pointing it out and re-reporting the same idiocy over and over again. But as the democracy-haters haven't given up on their insidious nonsense, I guess I have little choice but to keep pointing it out from time to time.



