Sunday, October 12, 2008

Arizona reader has some good balance to add to news about potential voter fraud by ACORN

A good reader from Arizona with activist roots to better the future for the less fortunate has written an interesting perspective on the ACORN controversy from his experiences in registering voters.

His perspective is something to consider before making a judgment on the ACORN news.

He writes:

I feel uneasy about this whole "voter registration fraud" story. From the linked story, it states that 380 registrations have been flagged. Later, the ACORN guy states that they have registered about 50,000 voters in the state. It just doesn't compute to a fraud or a scandal if you ask me.

I mean, if some random proposition drive submitted 50,000 signatures to reach the ballot and 380 were thrown out, it would seem like a pretty good success rate. And the media wouldn't care, to boot.

I'm not associated with ACORN, but I did volunteer for a voter registration drive in Arizona in 2000. When you are doing voter registration, you meet up with a lot of people who are totally unfamiliar with the voting process. You do your best to explain the process and hope they fill out the forms correctly and legibly. You make sure to flag the obviously problematic ones (i.e. That guy's name is probably not Luke Skywalker and he probably doesn't live on Tatooine).

But it's virtually impossible to catch every single mistake or duplicate. There are undoubtedly bad apples who submit bad info on purpose, and they should be prosecuted.

Organizations should eliminate registration quotas and make sure to pay their people by the hour or event, not by the amount of forms turned in. But the county boards shouldn't complain about doing their job, which is to verify the voter registration forms.

When I read that 280 forms have been tossed out, it doesn't seem like fraud. It seems like the system is working the way it's supposed to work.



Well written and well said.

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