Rotten ACORN

In what is being called the "worst case of voter registration fraud in Washington state history," 7 employees of the liberal advocacy group ACORN have been charged with filling out fake voter registration forms:

King and Pierce County prosecutors filed felony charges today against seven people who allegedly committed the biggest voter-registration fraud in state history.

The defendants, who were paid employees and supervisors of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, concocted the scheme as an easy way to get paid, not as an attempt to influence the outcome of elections,

King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg said. "This was an act of vandalism upon the voter rolls of King County," Satterberg said. In addition to filing criminal charges, Satterberg said state and local officials had signed a five-year agreement with ACORN that requires the organization to beef up its training and procedures for detecting and reporting fraud.

ACORN agreed to pay King County $25,000 for its investigative costs and acknowledged that the national organization could be subject to criminal prosecution if fraud occurs again.

The defendants allegedly faked more than 1700 voter registration forms. They, like all ACORN employees nationwide, are paid by for every name they sign up. This has led to widespread charges of fraud in Missouri.,Ohio. and 12 other states.

The left likes to say that these are just poor folk trying to game the system and that they're not trying to affect an election. That may be true. But what about their bosses? And the people who make sure ACORN is well funded enough to carry out voter registration activities?

Those registrations can be used by people experienced in stuffing ballot boxes. It doesn't take much imagination to see how a small group of people can be hired to simply go from precinct to precinct using the false registrations to vote early and often.

Ed Lasky points out that the prosecutor who is bringing the charges is one of those Bush Administration appointees who replaced another US Attorney who evidently didn't care about the fraud. He supplies a link to a New York Times editorial last April that is revealing of the left's casual disregard to securing elections:

In partisan Republican circles, the pursuit of voter fraud is code for suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people. By resisting pressure to crack down on “fraud,” the fired United States attorneys actually appear to have been standing up for the integrity of the election system.

John McKay, one of the fired attorneys, says he was pressured by Republicans to bring voter fraud charges after the 2004 Washington governor’s race, which a Democrat, Christine Gregoire, won after two recounts. Republicans were trying to overturn an election result they did not like, but Mr. McKay refused to go along. “There was no evidence,” he said, “and I am not going to drag innocent people in front of a grand jury.”

Governer Gregoire won by 129 votes.

And as far as no evidence ACORN was faking voter registration forms? Here are some of the names they used on the forms:
 
Tom Tancredo
Dennis Hastert
Alcee Hastings
John McKay
Leon Spinks
Frekkie
Magoal
Fruto Boy Crispila

Did the Bushies have a point about US Attorneys not going after legitimate voter fraud? Not that the Democrats would ever concede.