Dispatches from the Culture Wars

On Monday, I interviewed Maurice Thompson of the Buckeye Institute, the group who filed a RICO suit against ACORN in Ohio. I asked him if he could provide any examples of someone actually getting to vote illegitimately as a result of any action by ACORN and this was his answer:

"Yes. New Mexico during the Democrat primaries this year. Only one house district performed any kind of quantitative analysis, but they found 80 some individuals who actually cast fraudulent votes because they were fraudulently registered. Not all of those were ACORN, but many of those were."

I asked him if he could document this and he gave me a link to this article in a Kansas newspaper, which didn't say anything about "80 some" individuals casting fraudulent votes, nor does it show that officials in the house district performed a "quantitative analysis." It refers only to a press conference at which Republican officials alleged that 28 people had voted fraudulently, out of which they provided the identities of 10 of them. So even without the information that follows, what Thompson told me was not even close to being an accurate representation of the situation.

But now it looks like even those allegations are false. What the GOP called "undeniable proof that there was voter fraud in the June election" was really just a few voter registration cards that were incompletely filled out, had missing birth dates or social security numbers. But this is hardly proof of voter fraud. When local elections officials receive incomplete cards, they follow up with the applicant to correct it before approving their voter registration and adding them to the state's central voter file.

They said that such incomplete voter registration cards, all by themselves, "indicates significant indicia of fraud, identity theft issues or serious identity questions." Based on such flimsy "proof," acquired through a FOIA request, the New Mexico GOP then hired a private investigator to visit each of the voters and then publicized their names as having voted illegally.

As a result, one group in New Mexico has now filed a lawsuit against them for harassing and intimidating voters. One of the people they named is a 67 year old woman who just became an American citizen; needless to say, she's taking being accused of voter fraud rather personally.

ACORN followed up on this and contacted all of the people named by the Republicans as having voted illegally, confirmed that they were the ones who voted and had that confirmed by local elections officials:

The voters that the Republicans named in their press conference on Thursday were quickly reached by ACORN Thursday night. They include three 18 and 19-year-olds and a new citizen, all first-time voters. Their legitimacy was confirmed by the Bernalillo County Clerk. All confirmed that they voted in the June primary and expressed outrage that the Republican Party is targeting them...

ACORN confirmed with the Bernalillo County Clerk that the voters in question were all legitimate.

So let's review. The plaintiff's attorney in a case that alleges that they have proof that ACORN has committed massive institutional voter registration fraud for the purpose of helping people vote illegally, when asked if he could document any case of someone actually voting illegally because of ACORN, dishonestly described a situation in another state that, it turns out, was based on flimsy evidence and is false. Do you need any more proof that his lawsuit is purely a PR move rather than a serious claim for relief?