Acorn is a grassroots organization that works to register low income voters in hopes of alleviating the problem with disenfranchised voters in America. Acorn has once again come under fire for allegations of election fraud in multiple states. Last year Acorn was forced to pay $25,000 in fines to improve oversight in King County, Washington, where I happen to be a registered voter.
The fact of the matter is that the 7 people that were charged with voter fraud, in my county, worked for and represented Acorn. These people were motivated by money, not election fraud. This was a isolated case and is not common for workers and representatives of Acorn, as has been proven by there consistent track record.
Some are calling the most recent allegations against Acorn smear tactics, while others are calling them valid complaints. Based on the evidence that I have collected from multiple sources around the web, I am going to have to say that these are smear tactics.
Truth: Just a allegation. I work on facts and figures and all I could find is GOP and republican representatives claiming this. I need more then just a GOP lawyer’s “opinion” to believe this one.
Truth: Once again I am trying to stick to facts here and all I could find is a GOP lawyers claim that one worker, who they are working on trying to get a signed affidavit from, said this was true. My bet… there won’t be any affidavit signed.
Truth: Acorn does. They are actually forced to. By law if you or I fill out a voter registration form and hand it to a Acorn member they have to turn it in to election officials. Even if we sign it as Donald Trump or Wall-E the robot. Acorn attempts to flag these invalid forms but has no control on excluding them.
The reality is that we need more funding for local election offices so that they can screen and check voter cards for accuracy. This all appears to be once again a typical smear campaign of false allegations against Acorn in a prime election season in hopes of purging valid voters.
The real sad part in all of this is that the campaign is working. In a month, all of these allegations could turn out to be false, but will get no media coverage. Instead as Americans we are forced to live with this lingering fear and doubt over a excellent organization that attempts to help poor and low income people be part of the vote.
I think we all need to take a moment and reflect on how many times we are bombarded with allegations that are not true and lead to fear and doubt. It’s called framing and it works. We must all hold back from believing allegations and stick to proven facts. I’ll leave you with a quote from Mark Twain.
“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from otherâ€
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