Fraudulent voter registrations from ACORN hit the air waves during the 2008 presidential election. The level of coverage made me start thinking about why voter registration fraud was portrayed as a serious threat.
Voter Registration vs Census
Census records are gathered every 10 years and used to:
- Redistrict states (a.k.a. Gerrymandering)
- Issue funds and subsidies to counties and states
- Build appropriate transportation infrastructure
- Ensure there are enough schools and hospitals
- …and more¹
Voter registration records are gathered/updated constantly and used by the local and state government to:
- Verify that a citizen’s personal identification matches a valid voter record
- Confirm that a citizen lives inside the district in which they are attempting to vote
- Prevent citizens from voting multiple times
- Calculate voter statistics and trends
Voter Registration vs Votes
Elections are won by the politician with the most votes. Election results, state funding, schools, roads, prisons, etc. are not affected by voter registration data.
Faking Votes
Let’s say a citizen registers in multiple local districts in a single House of Representatives district. It is assumed that polling station workers will recognize the citizen on return visits. The citizen has one fake ID per local district. The citizen drives to each polling station and casts a vote for a party. At the end of the day there are 10 extra votes for a political party.
The number of “Kiss me I Voted” stickers on the citizen’s jacket might be a dead giveaway. Even if the citizen is savvy enough to remove them after each vote – I still don’t believe in organized registration/ voter/ driving rings. It is way too cumbersome.
The only way in which voter registration fraud could actually affect an election is if the voting stations had a collusion with ACORN to submit votes on behalf of bogus registrants. If this was true, there would be thousands of poll station workers in on the secret. I find it hard to believe this many people would remain silent after all this time.
ACORN has never been charged with stuffing ballots or altering legitimate ballots.
Faking Signatures
rottenacorn.com² has a list of charges brought against the organization. Falsified ballot initiative signatures appear to be the most severe infraction (in my opinion). These ballot initiatives were asking for an increase in the minimum wage to be added to the ballot.
When a ballot initiative receives the minimum number of required signatures, the initiative is added to the ballot for the next election. Ultimately, the voters are responsible for passing or blocking the proposed legislation.
Conclusion
It appears that ACORN stepped over a legal line while attempting to help lower income individuals and families. In my opinion, they have only helped get the ball rolling on certain issues.