Tuesday, October 14, 2008

One Mouse, One Vote...


While I realize it's important for people to exercise their right to vote, I really have to draw the line at registering Mickey Mouse to vote. It appears that the nonprofit group ACORN has signed Walt Disney's famous creation up to vote in the coming election...

Florida has had problems counting hanging chads before, do we really want to see them counting characters too? No matter who you vote for in November, I think we can all agree that Mickey shouldn't be allowed to vote.

20 comments:

William Kelley said...

Considering Acorn's past fraud, with dozens of employees indicted, and their current fraud investigations in at least 16 swing states, where thousands of fake registrations have occurred, the entire Cowboys team in Nevada, dead people in Missouri, and already registered Democrats registering an extra 75 times in Ohio, I wouldn't put it past them to register Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and probably even Walt Disney himself.

Anonymous said...

I think its disgusting and a sad reflection of what lengths certain supporters will go to to get their candidate elected.

very sad

Joe said...

Let's get the facts right here:
1. Acorn hired people (on an hourly basis, not a per-form basis) to go out and help people fill out these forms.

2. Some of them aren't good employees and just bring in junk. Every company has bad employees.

3. By state law they must hand in every form that comes to them. That's every form. No matter how silly.

4. Acorn takes the extra step (not required by law) to flag the bad forms. They give each bad form a cover sheet that says "hey, election officials, you might want to check this one, it seems bad"

5. Election officials ignore those warnings. Then these strange names registered.

Don't blame Acorn for following the law and cooperating fully with the local officials (and going above and beyond what the law says they must do).

If you're looking for someone to blame then blame the electoral officials who didn't follow up on the warnings Acorn gave them about the forms that, by law, Acorn had to hand in.

-Joe Kavanagh

PS - Even if that form had been processed and gotten in the system the person would have had to shown up with a Mickey Mouse photographic ID. There is no record of any substantial vote fraud via false voter registrations. There are, however, records of voter suppression based on much dirtier tactics.

Anonymous said...

I did not realize that Obama officials monitor this site, Joe.

Matt said...

So... the reason why we have 4,000 fraudulent voters registered is because ACORN has some incapable employees? I'm more willing to think they are corrupt than inanely incompetent.

I'm all for democracy, regardless of which candidate wins. There should be outcries all over the place, on both sides... Such despicable work going on inside ACORN...

William Kelley said...

To counter Joe's PS, it's important to know that in Ohio and other states, it is possible to vote by mail and avoid having to show ID. In fact, people are urged to do this. On top of that, at least in Ohio, because the last day you can register overlaps with the time you can mail your votes in, some people are registering and voting at the same time, in the same envelope. This becomes a more difficult and time-sensitive problem. Not to mention, after voting by mail as a fake person with no ID, you can go vote on election day as a real person, with a real ID. Two votes, one person.

Anonymous said...

You redneck hayseeds voted him in twice over the past eight years so I see no reason why you shouldn't allow him to vote when he leaves office.

Matt said...

Care to explain, Che?

Anonymous said...

I think he's saying President Bush is Mickey Mouse. Real classy.

Matt said...

I consider myself a rather learned individual... Yet I still don't understand what Mickey Mouse has to do with Bush?

Joe said...

@mojave33
In Ohio (and most other states) the first time you vote (including early balloting) you must physically present yourself (with photographic ID). In Ohio this year you can do that via early voting but you must do it in person.

@matt
A friend of mine worked for an ACORN office a while back in a large city. They were expected to return 50 cards on average for weekdays and 100 cards on average for weekends. If one employee works for the month of August doing this and just makes stuff up and submits it they will generate 2050 cards. That's one employee.

Also ACORN handed over, without even asking for a court order, those people who generated the cards. ACORN is the real group that got defrauded here, not the election.

@anonymous
I am not an "Obama official." I am however a citizen who cares about the law and putting the blame for breaking it where it fits. If the law states "you must hand in every card you get" then I would shame ACORN if they didn't hand in cards that were for Mickey Mouse or Tony Romo. Who gets to make that call? Also, ACORN works regardless of party, two years ago they held quite a large rally with John McCain.

Also, when you stand in the public square to have a disagreement the one thing that is required is that you show your face and have your say. I can understand using a pseudonym. I have done it in the past myself. But please, for the sake of a discussion among adults pick a pseudonym that you will stand behind.

I put my real name at the end of my posts across dozens of sites where my opinion will be recorded for as long as those sites choose to serve that content not because I want notoriety or my google search ranking to go up. I do it because this is a country that was founded by a group of adults standing up and saying enough was enough and that they would stand behind their arguments come what may. We must all, in my believe, strive to live to that standard if we wish to be true patriots to our country.

My thanks to those who are willing to have an open discussion that they stand behind (mojave33, matt).

-Joe Kavanagh

Anonymous said...

ACORN also has connections to the housing disaster we're seeing now. It put political pressure (bordering on blackmail) on Congressional members to give loans to lower-income families who didn't have a chance of paying them back - in order to be "fair". Yeah, fair. Look at those families now, at the mess they're in. Is that fair? And look how those bad loans have impacted the rest of us - is that fair? ACORN is also, as some here have already noted, big supporters of Obama, and vice-versa. There is a film of a meeting with Obama and ACORN where he's telling them that they're going to play a big part in his presidential ambitions. And ultimately, ACORN is an organization with a socialist agenda. That's not hearsay, that is fact.

Oh, and I applaud your practice of putting your real name on your posts, Joe Kavanagh. If only ACORN had a similar philosophy regarding its handling of voter registration.
Sincerely,
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Anonymous said...

First, I full support Mickey Mouse's right to vote. Just because he's a mouse doesn't mean he isn't a valuable American citizen, and he deserves every right to participate in our Democracy. Certainly, I'd like to see Mickey Mouse vote before some of my fellow voters. Dude is a legend. Cut the mouse some slack. That being said . . .

@cyberjoek: "2. Some of them aren't good employees and just bring in junk. Every company has bad employees."

Well, they seem to have a huge problem with that, to the point you have to start thinking that the organization is rotten from the top down. And it turns out a lot of those forms are not "handed in", but instead filled out by the unusually large number of "bad employees" ACORN just happens to hire.

"If you're looking for someone to blame then blame the electoral officials who didn't follow up on the warnings Acorn gave them about the forms that, by law, Acorn had to hand in."

No, I blame ACORN primarily. There is something wrong with their process or who they are trying to register or the manner in which they are soliciting registrations if a tax payer funded entity with a huge fund raising arm ends up getting huge amounts of fraudulent registrations, to the point where, in one jurisdiction every single one of them was bad. They've got cash. They could hire better people or target people who are actually eligible for a legitimate voter registration drive. They aren't, they haven't, and they are obviously up to something else.

Also: "Even if that form had been processed and gotten in the system the person would have had to shown up with a Mickey Mouse photographic ID." In many places, this just isn't true. Might have been true for Mickey Mouse, I do not know, but many locations require no photo ID, and sometimes very weak identification, period. And such registrations may serve as a distraction from more credible false registrations.

"There are, however, records of voter suppression based on much dirtier tactics."

Like the dogs and police that were supposedly keeping folks away from the polls in 2004 and 2000 that turned out not to exist? Or the Butterfly Ballots in Florida, designed by Democrats?

How many Republicans has ACORN been registering, as a tax-exempt, tax-payer funded, non-partisan organization?

Regarding how many fraudulent votes actually are made, I would imagine the fraudulent voter registrations are largely unused if it's not necessary for the Democrat in that race to win. Why take the risk? On the other hand, in places where elections have been close, more people have turned out to have voted that were actually eligible to do so.

Unknown said...

"Regarding how many fraudulent votes actually are made, I would imagine the fraudulent voter registrations are largely unused if it's not necessary for the Democrat in that race to win. Why take the risk? On the other hand, in places where elections have been close, more people have turned out to have voted that were actually eligible to do so."

Please explain how this could even remotely come close to working knowing the amount of people that would have to be involved to make a difference. For a difference to be made, it would require thousands of people. Finding thousands of people who want to participate in vote fraud is hard enough, keeping them all quiet is harder. Organizing them all to monitor the polls and only dispatch them if it is close? Seems impossible to me.

For info on vote id laws, see this list: http://www.ncsl.org/programs/legismgt/elect/taskfc/voteridreq.htm

It explains that in addition to state laws, every first time voter must present valid id if they vote by mail. There goes that aspect of fraud, as every ballot by mail is checked. Someone voting more than once will be caught, a fake identity will be caught. In addition to that, 24 states have tighter laws for all voters. This includes the following battleground states: Michigan, Indiana, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, and Ohio. That only leaves three states in play, New Mexico, Nevada, and North Carolina. New Mexico has an ID law but it is less strict. Nevada and North Carolina don't have one to my knowledge.

ACORN (per their website) has registered 77,000 people in NM, 87,000 in NV, and 26,000 in NC. Assume that 10% of these are false, AND the false registrations fraudulently vote, which to me is a generous figure. That equals 7,700 in NM, 8,700 in NV, and 2,600 in NC.

Latest polls put Obama up by 5-10% in New Mexico. If that is the case, 7,700 more votes is irrelevent. In Nevada, he is up 2-5%. Again, the 8,700 votes wouldn't tip the scale. North Carolina is essentially tied, but 2,600 votes is still a very small number, and it is HIGHLY unlikely that the election would result in this being the deciding state.

Again, I ask the basic question: if we assume 10% of ACORN's registrants are frauds, is it really reasonable to expect to be able to get this many fraudulent votes committed given the logistical issues involved, and would someone take that risk when the election is so much closer elsewhere that these three states really don't matter in the large scheme of things? I would say no, but you can make your own judgment. Just wanted to put down a post with actual facts in it for a change. To me, the fact that ACORN itself actively tries to weed out and flag fraudulent registrations is enough to convince me that they are legit.

Unknown said...

After doing a little more research, here are some independent assessments on voter fraud in general and ACORN specifically:

From the AP: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OH_VOTER_FRAUD_OHOL-?SITE=OHWOO&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

key takeaway: out of nine million votes cast in Ohio between 2002 and 2004, a thorough statewide investigation found 9 individual cases of fraud out of roughly 9 million total votes cast.

Secondly, a report from the Michigan Messenger: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/10/facts_about_acorn_and_alleged.php#more

The authors research leads him to conclude that there is no voter fraud. Someone in the comments comes in to contradict him and brings up reports of fraud. Every case the dissenter cites seems to be significantly less than 1,000 voters in each state, and it seems that all of these votes are then accounted for and subtracted from the tally.

Bottom line: yes, voter fraud happens, but 1) there is no evidence that any of it is linked to ACORN, 2) it is so small that it is not going to make a negligible difference and even that small number is primarily stopped from having their votes counted.

Now hopefully we can get back to talking about things much more enjoyable than partisan politics.

Anonymous said...

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the current crisis has nothing to do with banks giving loans to low income and minority citizens in urban areas. I assume you are referring to the Community Reinvestment Act, a law that actually has its roots in a late-1970s New York law that required banks to set up shop in the Bronx.

No bank wanted to open in the Bronx at that time, but a decade later the banks were quite pleased because they actually made money in what were quite economically depressed areas as citizens deposited their money and took very low value loans. Indeed, foreclosures in urban areas such as the Bronx have not skyrocketed in the past few years, as most people in these areas never pretended to be millionaires and thus never tried to buy houses they couldn't afford. Suburbanites who moved further out into huge houses in the exurbs and who spent a large amount of their income on fuel are more to blame than any low income citizens.

The Community Reinvestment Act is a very good law that has succeeded in allowing low income citizens to secure loans in order to buy a car or a house, and is in fact a very good law that has attempted to fix the government's past neglect of urban areas. The poor (usually code word for minorities) are usually blamed for all wrongs in our society but our current crisis is in no way their fault.
-Roger Sherman

Anonymous said...

With the choices I have, I was thinking of voting for Mickey Mouse, although I think Donald might be more like Teddy Roosevelt on foreign policy and better suited for the job. Plus if Donald made a bad economic decision, he could always hit up Uncle Scrooge for a loan.

Anonymous said...

You really think Uncle Scrooge give Donald a loan?

Anonymous said...

This whole ACORN thing is a disaster. I'm so thankful they are finally being pulled out into the light so everyone can see how distorted they are trying to make the elections.

If you scratch the surface a little further with these ACORN people you'll find a whole horde of ugly associations going all the way up.

Signed:
Joe the Plumber

Anonymous said...

ACORN rhymes with G