Perhaps the stupidest, most desperate RW theory EVER. (think it through)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

The clip of Fox news coverage of the ACORN scandal (sic) that is used in McCain's ad on the topic shows a chart of polls from battleground states showing Obama moving ahead of McCain.

Then they show a map of the states where ACORN has big voter registration drives and attendant allegations/investigations of registration irregularities.

GASP! They're the same states where Obama is rising in the polls! Then they ask, "Is this a Coincidence? Maybe not!"

We can skip over the Category 2 idiocy of seeing a conspiracy in the fact that a campaign would concentrate voter registration efforts in swing states.

Consider the Category 5 idiocy of attributing Obama's rise in the polls to the alleged ACORN crimes of registering dead people or imaginary people or registering the same person ten times.

How does that work, exactly? How the HELL can registering dead people to vote cause any candidate to rise in the polls?

Do pollsters interview dead people?

Do they poll imaginary people? Do they call the same person ten times because they're registered ten times? One of the ACORN outrages is a registration where the address is a gas station. Okay. Did a pollster interview the gas station? (And how do we know a gas station would be for Obama... sounds more like a Palin vote to me.)

For that matter, do public pollsters even work from new-voter registration rolls at all?

The more you think about it the weirder it gets. But not only did FOX say it, McCain then used it in an ad!

[MichaelHarris]

1. The scoop on what the talking heads don't say

none of those "fictitious" people that were registered will show up to vote. Does anyone really think the Dallas Cowboys are going to vote in Dallas then fly to Vegas? There's no fraud if no one votes. None of these fake names are voting. I wrote this earlier about ACORN and republicans making this political:

When rats feel the ship sinking they get desperate. When political parties see the big white house leaving their grasp they get dirty. Today's raid of ACORN may be one of those dirty tricks. Who is ACORN? From their website,

"ACORN is the nation’s largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country. Since 1970, ACORN has been building community organizations that are committed to social and economic justice, and won victories on thousands of issues of concern to our members, through direct action, negotiation, legislative advocacy and voter participation. ACORN helps those who have historically been locked out become powerful players in our democratic system."

Doesn't sound like they're major players in crime, by all accounts they appear to be an upstanding organization. Today's raid and it's national media attention seem to suggest otherwise, well not when you see the facts. The story,

"The Las Vegas headquarters of the nation’s largest grassroots community organization for low-income people was raided today by Nevada state authorities as part of a voter-fraud probe. The raid was initiated by Nevada’s Secretary of State, Ross Miller, after a series of accusations that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also known as ACORN, was submitting voter registration lists to the state that contained false or duplicate names of voters."

How horrible! Low Income people doing the whole voter fraud thing, the thing usually reserved for Republicans. Well hold on, the media and the Nevada Secretary of State aren't telling you the whole truth. It seems ACORN had recognized the voter fraud ten months ago, they immediately notified election officials. During those ten months these officials routinely ignored ACORN's concerns.

From a statement issued by ACORN,

"Election officials routinely ignored this information and failed to act. In early July, ACORN asked to meet with election officials to express our concerns that they were not acting on information ACORN had presented to them. ACORN met with Clark County elections officials and a representative of the Secretary of State on July 17th. ACORN pleaded with them to take our concerns about fraudulent applications seriously. One week later, elections officials asked us to provide them with a second copy of what we had previously provided to them. ACORN responded by giving election officials copies of 46 "problem application packages," which involved 33 former canvassers. On September 23, ACORN had received a subpoena dated September 19th requesting information on 15 employees, all of whom had been included in the packages we had previously submitted to election officials. ACORN provided our personnel records on these 15 employees on September 29."

All of this leads to today's stunt, a stunt on a day with a presidential debate. A stunt less than a month before the Presidential Election. ACORN say's it better than I can,

"serves no useful purpose other than discredit our work registering Nevadans and distracting us from the important work ahead of getting every eligible voter to the polls."

Nevadans, is this the sort of actions you want in your state? Hard working people who identified a problem and reported it to officials only to be raided at a more convenient date? Contact Nevada’s Secretary of State, Ross Miller, tell him this is NOT the politics you want your officials playing.

This is a non-story being made into news. The real story is Nevada's Sec of State covered it up until October.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. They are just seeking to pre-delegitimize Obama's election

[grannylib]

4. Or trying to make it appear close enough that a theft would be

'credible' based on polls - they are freaking out over the big gap in the numbers, so they are trying to do anything they can to 'tighten it up' so they can steal it.
These 'people' will stop at NOTHING to retain power.

[Ozma]

21. WOW, even I, a rather well-informed voter, didn't know the background story until now.........n/t

[ShadowLiberal]

3. But but... pollsters are really smart!!! Their polls are 100% accurate!

Didn't you hear, pollsters know to ask people how many places they're registered to vote in, and people ALWAYS tell the truth.

Pollsters are also smart enough to poll dead people to! The saying "you can't take it with you when you die" is false, they poll dead people who took a phone with them!

It's really disgusting with stuff like this makes headlines, but only a few rare local news papers/TV stations even bother to cover serious potential election fraud, like Diebold threatening to sue college professors who say they want to verify that their machines are 100% accurate. You think they'd be threatening lawsuits and protecting the code used to count the votes if they were really 99.9% accurate?

[grantcart]

5. excellent

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. Thank you!

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

18. ---

[calmblueocean]

6. This needs to be on the Greatest Page.

The logic is awesome.

[EC]

7. They are setting up law suits after the election to

challange the totals and make sure mccain drags this thing out, until the courts are brought in again...

[Ikonoklast]

11. But there is precedent now in Gore v Bush

It would be delicious to use that against them in their own hand-picked court.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

12. But Bush v. Gore is the only decision that says it has no weight as precedent

It's right in the decision!

(The weird equal protection argument the case relies on would, if of precedentiary value, void all elections where different counties have different voting machines or procedures.)

[Ikonoklast]

15. Forgot about that caveat

Then any case would take an extremely narrow focus, determining only the validity of specific votes, and would have no value as the numbers aren't there to change the election one way or the other.

[EC]

17. No, actually part of the decision was

that it could not be used for precedent...a one time decision...

[Roland99]

9. I thought the exact same thing when I saw that segment on Faux!!

:rofl:


MORANS!!

[Cresent City Kid]

10. My brain hurts

I sort of heard the coverage you're talking about, but I think I missed the gist of it. I thought they were saying that Obama's poll numbers were up in states where there was investigation of voter fraud, as if all voter fraud investigations are legitamate and somehow Obama's rise is not. What you point out is more bizzare and head-scratching. Will they make a documentary of the dead's effect on the race called "Voting with Bernie"?

[abumbyanyothername]

13. I posted a bunch of ACORN facts on a mixed board

that I participate in and I got this response:

"Re: If you are really concerned about ACORN 10-Oct-08 10:44 am
Fact: Acorn is under investigation in 10 states.

Not quite as wordy as your post, but still significant."

[Catherine Vincent]

14. Reported on our local news here tonight were ACORN workers

fired for registering up to 10 times each. They thought it would net them more money. The guy they interviewed (don't know who he was with) admitted that it is not illegal but it can get confusing when it comes time to vote. You could tell in his face, he wanted this so much to be a scandal.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

16. Yup. A registration irregularity that doesn't lead to extra votes is irrelevant.

[moriah]

19. Isn't it funny how it's the Republicans whining about voter fraud this year?

I don't think they seemed to care much about Ohio's asshole Secretary of State in 2004, or Kathleen Harris in 2000....

[iceman66]

20. Anything to make Obama look bad.

I guess they are counting on the 'low information voter' not to think it through.

The extent to which the media is willing to lie and distort facts in order to benefit McCain borders on criminal fraud.

[Avalux]

22. It doesn't. And those bad registrations don't translate into votes.

The people who watch Fox news religiously are too stupid to understand. They watch Fox - don't expect them to think.

[Juche]

23. Desperate attempt to maintain a failed idealogy

When the GOP loses viciously in 2008 they will claim 'well the public wanted us and our ideas, but vote fraud stole the election'. Obvious election and vote fraud is important no matter who does it, but they are just desperate to convince themselves that it isn't their crap idealogy that lost the election, but something else. Just keep rubbing it in and don't let them forget the real reason they lost, because in 2000 we were at peace, had a surplus, the constitution was functioning, the world respected us, and most of us thought our country was going on the right path. Now 8 years later (with 8 yrs GOP in the WH and 6 years GOP in the congress) every one of those has changed, largely because of GOP sponsored initiatives. So just keep rubbing it in.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

24. Yup. Idealogues will do almost anything to not accept the validity of elections

[Juche]

25. There are election discrepencies

There were in 2000 and 2004. However when the GOP loses this election by 10% or more (they lost 2006 by 7-8%, and this one will be an even bigger loss for them) they need a ready made excuse to convince themselves that the public still want their ideas but for some reason didn't vote for them. Hence vote fraud.