Bill Moyers Journal: ACORN is NOT Voter Fraud

BILL MOYERS: What do you make of the ACORN controversy? MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, I make of it what it is a first-class propaganda drive. The entities you've mentioned are all participating in it - Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, John McCain, the McCain campaign, despite the inconvenient fact that John McCain gave the keynote speech at ACORN's annual conference in 2006. We won't talk about that. The fact is that what we're hearing about ACORN is, without exception, false. It is false. ACORN itself flagged the suspicious voter registration forms that caused this whole thing to begin in Las Vegas about ten days ago. It brought those forms to the attention of the secretary of state who then turned around and said, "Ah-ha, evidence that you're conspiring to commit voter fraud." Well, filling out voter registration forms dishonestly to pick up a couple of bucks, which is what the ACORN volunteers had done, is not voter fraud.

[Iria]

MARK CRISPIN MILLER: These are infractions by grass-roots volunteers who do the wrong thing. That's not voter fraud, however. Voter fraud would be if somebody showed up to vote and said, "Hi, I'm Mickey Mouse. May I vote now?" That's not going on.

BILL MOYERS: And does that happen very often?

MARK CRISPIN MILLER: It never happens. Let's just talk statistically about this, okay? As of 2007 the Department of Justice had prosecuted - are you ready for this? This number? 120 cases of voter fraud.

BILL MOYERS: Over what period?

MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Over, well, this is, like four years. Okay? 120 cases. And there were 82 convictions. Now, I think the republic will probably withstand that attack, right? We're talking about voter fraud that's being perpetrated in the tens. And I can tell you, moreover, that not one of those cases of fraud actually involved a person showing up to vote improperly. They were other kinds of fraud. You know, election judges breaking the law and so on.

The point I'm making to you here, Bill - and this is the most important thing I'm going to say to you tonight - is that this is a pretext being used by a party, okay, that is itself committing election fraud and vote suppression on an enormous scale. In other words, we have a party that is itself engaged in disenfranchising, actively disenfranchising millions of Americans. It is itself complaining about a group that is supposedly planning to do the same thing but that isn't doing that at all.

BILL MOYERS: What's the evidence that say the Republican Party is disenfranchising millions of people?

MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, first of all, all of these voter purges, the caging of voters, as I described before.

[lynnette]

this is very important - the transcript is detailed, but it explains how voter registration cards are collected by workers for Acorn, and Acorn is obliged to turn them in, by law, but Acorn itself flags the ones it suspects are not valid - if the names are alphabetical or of celebrities, or are writtin in the same handwriting. This actually helps the voting officials to decide to reject the application. No harm, no foul. If someone in authority wishes to prosecute a person who turns in the false cards, then Acorn cooperates by giving the names of thier own ex-employees. Usually they have fired the ones whom they suspected of submitting phoney cards. there is a problem in that Acorn people should be better organized, and the local leaders should be awared of what sort of people are not trustworthy to hire, but that is not always possible. So the shorter the time a worker doew this work, in order to get some pay, the fast the acorn coordinators can discover who is submitting phoney application cards. the quicker they can be fired. I would recommend that. I would also recommend that college students be hired to do part of the registration work, with a neighborhood going with them around the 'hood to protect them and explain what they are doing in helping people to apply to vote. The college student - from a predominantly African-American school possibly, or at least an African-American, should be able to be sure the form is filled out correctly and legibly and fully. The neighborhood person should be able to handle the logistics of getting around the neighborhood and finding people. The college students should be able to apply for independent study credit in political science, if they do this work and also other work and reading assigned by a professor - or have it considered an internship. This would be good training for the students, and give them an idea of the realities of working in a predominantly black and poor neighborhood in some way after they graduate. Some might find a cause, others might decide not to go back and to escape to an integrated, more secure, more personal life, without a political cause. they have that right, and should see what they are in for in their lives, either way!

[United Music Festival]

The Drifters - Listen
Visit Web SiteFree Full-length Songs Custom radio plays what you want
www.jango.com
BILLY DRiFTER TRIBUTE TO THE TROOPS! THE BIGGEST WILD WEST SHOW TEXAS HAS EVER SEEN! 14,15,16,Nov 2008 LOAD UP THE TRUCK BRING GRANDMA & GRANDPA & THE BABYS!
World United Music Festival at 500 acre site off Centerpoint Road ...

]World United Music Festival Finds Home in San Marcos, TX The United States Entertainment Force in conjunction with the Roots Music Association...
www.last.fm/event/777905 - 69k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

[lynnette]

The point of the interview was that the loud and persistent and widely spread complaints by Republicans about acorn, are a deliberate effort to confuse people. At the same time, Republicans are atempting to carry out massive voters suppression. This is done more quietly, by sending letters to registered voters, and if the letters are returned with not at that address (they are not forwarded to the new address - where the voter could see that he/she had to change his voter registration) then the voter is taken from the rolls. Even if a mistake is made. With floods, and foreclosures, naturally there is a lot of moving around, especially among the poor. the tactic is aimed usually at Democratic and minority voters, especially the poor, and people like hispanics, who might be intimidated, with fear of persecution by those who distrust all hispanics, even those legally citizens of the US. There are varioud tactics of voter suppression - they go back a long way, including to when Rehnquist - the former Chief Justice of the united States - allegedly used voter suppression against black voters and others in Arizona, when he was a gOP political operative thre, before he came to work for Richard Nixon at the Justice Deopartment, where he did other questionable things - including ordering mass false arrests without documentation and without any crime being actually committed - of young people who were merely on the streets or side walks walking and not causing trouble, during anti-war demonstrations. The courts later ruled that these mass arrests were improper! A law-abiding Justie Department official would have asked the police to check all the relevant laws, and arrest law-breakers, such as anyone blocking the flow of traffic. But that was not done - even students going from one building to another for classes in one area of DC were arrested on the sidewalks, just walking along with books. So the sort of person who broke up the rights of votes, also went aftr the free speech rights of citizens, also, and was rewarded it with promotions by Richard Nixon. That is standard operating procedure for the racist right-wing of the GOP (not others, the tradictional Republicans and conservatives who do traditional drives to merely get out the vote of their own supporters, which is proper). Karl Rove is now a political mastermind coordinating a variety of dirty tricks - even conducting trial runs here and there to see what works. Fliers are distributed in college towns and black neighborhoods, threatening people who vote with arrest if they vote and owe for a parking ticket, for exmple. There have been fliers like this recently in Phjiliadelphia. A major report by Common Cause and the Century fund, found that voter suppression plans and tactics were underway in the swing states in the 2008 Presidential election. This was very recent and was reporter on national public radio. More names of people ho could legally vote are beig removed from the voter rolls, in many areas, than are being addded by new registrations. also the new registrations are delayed by asking for additional information not required by law - but insisted upon by partisan election officials who look for excuses to throw out registrations from college and african-American areas. Yes, this sort of thing goes on. And yes, it really results in people losing their right to vote! And when people find out on election day, sometimes it is too late, and other times it just causes nasty delays in the voting line - to discourage people from waiting, or to get the polls to close before everyone had voted!

[Indyeast]

lynnette wrote:

The point of the interview was that the loud and persistent and widely spread complaints by Republicans about acorn, are a deliberate effort to confuse people. At the same time, Republicans are atempting to carry out massive voters suppression. This is done more quietly, by sending letters to registered voters, and if the letters are returned with not at that address (they are not forwarded to the new address - where the voter could see that he/she had to change his voter registration) then the voter is taken from the rolls. Even if a mistake is made. With floods, and foreclosures, naturally there is a lot of moving around, especially among the poor. the tactic is aimed usually at Democratic and minority voters, especially the poor, and people like hispanics, who might be intimidated, with fear of persecution by those who distrust all hispanics, even those legally citizens of the US. There are varioud tactics of voter suppression - they go back a long way, including to when Rehnquist - the former Chief Justice of the united States - allegedly used voter suppression against black voters and others in Arizona, when he was a gOP political operative thre, before he came to work for Richard Nixon at the Justice Deopartment, where he did other questionable things - including ordering mass false arrests without documentation and without any crime being actually committed - of young people who were merely on the streets or side walks walking and not causing trouble, during anti-war demonstrations. The courts later ruled that these mass arrests were improper! A law-abiding Justie Department official would have asked the police to check all the relevant laws, and arrest law-breakers, such as anyone blocking the flow of traffic. But that was not done - even students going from one building to another for classes in one area of DC were arrested on the sidewalks, just walking along with books. So the sort of person who broke up the rights of votes, also went aftr the free speech rights of citizens, also, and was rewarded it with promotions by Richard Nixon. That is standard operating procedure for the racist right-wing of the GOP (not others, the tradictional Republicans and conservatives who do traditional drives to merely get out the vote of their own supporters, which is proper). Karl Rove is now a political mastermind coordinating a variety of dirty tricks - even conducting trial runs here and there to see what works. Fliers are distributed in college towns and black neighborhoods, threatening people who vote with arrest if they vote and owe for a parking ticket, for exmple. There have been fliers like this recently in Phjiliadelphia. A major report by Common Cause and the Century fund, found that voter suppression plans and tactics were underway in the swing states in the 2008 Presidential election. This was very recent and was reporter on national public radio. More names of people ho could legally vote are beig removed from the voter rolls, in many areas, than are being addded by new registrations. also the new registrations are delayed by asking for additional information not required by law - but insisted upon by partisan election officials who look for excuses to throw out registrations from college and african-American areas. Yes, this sort of thing goes on. And yes, it really results in people losing their right to vote! And when people find out on election day, sometimes it is too late, and other times it just causes nasty delays in the voting line - to discourage people from waiting, or to get the polls to close before everyone had voted!

You have a link to your evidence? I'd like to see the flyers you speak of.

[GAPatriot65]

This is a smoke screen.

The GOP isn't claimimg voter fraud - they are claiming voter registration fraud, which ACORN is doing.

ACORN is not doing any screening - they are dumping these on overworked elections staffers.

Granted know one is going to show up saying they are Mickey Mouse.

However, what these morons aren't discussing, is that ACORN has been found to have submitted thousands of unverifiable registrations, and who knows the number of illegal aliens they registered.

It takes almost no effort to get fake ID's that would pass a cursory inspection by a overworked staffer at a voter precinct. Someone with a dozen fake ID's, each with a different address and name to match a voter registration submitted by ACORN, would allow a person to vote at 12 different precints, especially if they did early voting.

I would not put such an action past ACORN, even to the point of bussing these people precinct to precinct.

Then it becomes voter fraud.

This election will be getting very ugly, and an elected Obama will never be accepted by the majority as this fraud and the illegal foreign money come to light.

[Bill R]

GAPatriot65 wrote:

This is a smoke screen.
The GOP isn't claimimg voter fraud - they are claiming voter registration fraud, which ACORN is doing.
ACORN is not doing any screening - they are dumping these on overworked elections staffers.
Granted know one is going to show up saying they are Mickey Mouse.
However, what these morons aren't discussing, is that ACORN has been found to have submitted thousands of unverifiable registrations, and who knows the number of illegal aliens they registered.
It takes almost no effort to get fake ID's that would pass a cursory inspection by a overworked staffer at a voter precinct. Someone with a dozen fake ID's, each with a different address and name to match a voter registration submitted by ACORN, would allow a person to vote at 12 different precints, especially if they did early voting.
I would not put such an action past ACORN, even to the point of bussing these people precinct to precinct.
Then it becomes voter fraud.
This election will be getting very ugly, and an elected Obama will never be accepted by the majority as this fraud and the illegal foreign money come to light.

The overburdening of a legitimate governmental
procedure is a common tactic of radical politics.
Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" is a good
source. Both Barack and Michelle Obama are
familiar with the book, as is Bill Ayers. It
is a strategy used to corrupt the system while
at the same time declaring their "side" is being
persecuted by the very government they are
manipulating.


Old stuff, from the 60s. Get used to it. You'll
be seeing lots of it for the next several years.

[Biker Mom]

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictiona...
fraud �� (fr�d) KEY �

NOUN:

A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.
A piece of trickery; a trick.

One that defrauds; a cheat.
One who assumes a false pose; an impostor.

Last I knew ACORN was committing voter registration fraud.

Now those registering who are not eligable for it are committing voter fraud I believe.