What's the Big Rush?

WSJ July 30, 2007: "Initially, Acorn officials demanded the registrations be accepted and threatened to sue King County (Seattle) officials if they were tossed out. But just after four Acorn registration workers were indicted in Kansas City, Mo., on similar charges of fraud, the group reversed its position and said the registrations should be rejected. But by then, local election workers had had a reason to carefully scrutinize the forms and uncovered the fraud. Of the 1,805 names submitted by Acorn, only nine have been confirmed as valid, and another 34 are still being investigated. The rest--over 97%--were fake."

WSJ November 3, 2006 - "So, less than a week before the midterm elections, four workers from Acorn, the liberal activist group that has registered millions of voters, have been indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms to the Kansas City, Missouri, election board. But hey, who needs voter ID laws? ... Acorn workers have been convicted in Wisconsin and Colorado, and investigations are still under way in Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania."

Employment Policies Institute Press Release August 11, 2006: "ACORN’s recent run-in with the Franklin County elections board for allegedly turning in falsified voter registration cards is only the latest in a long-standing pattern of dubious elections practices. ACORN employees have been accused of submitting bogus voter registration cards and forging signatures on ballot initiatives in 12 states since 2004. "

National Review Online October 31, 2004 : "Reports of voter-registration fraud are tiresomely commonplace. From the 6,000 ineligible felons listed on Colorado's voter rolls, to the cocain offered in exchange for registrations from Mary Poppins and Dick Tracy in Ohio, this year's swing states have already seen unprecedentedly corrupt get-out-the-vote efforts. This is especially true in Florida, where (ACORN) is the subject of a state investigation for potentially criminal voter-registration activity. "

Searching the web reveals allegations of voter and voter-registration fraud associated with ACORN dating back to at least 2003. The web searches also reveal a wealth of partisan rhetoric about ACORN and the validty, or lack thereof, to the allegations. Search for "acorn fraud" on google and over 2 million results are returned. The first time I remember hearing about ACORN was during a news cast in the final days of the 2004 presidential election cycle. Silly me, I assumed that the issues would be investigated and the problem would be sorted out before it could be a problem in another presidential election. Here's a clip from CNN for some 2008 investigative reporting.

If ACORN has been embroiled in controversy since at least 2003, why are we still hearing about them? Why has no investigation proven or disproven the allegations of fraud associated with this organization between the last election and today? Neither the media nor our representatives in Washington have fulfilled their roles of looking after the public interest. ACORN is a tax-payer funded organization. Since 1998 the government has provided tens of millions of dollars to ACORN through grants. It is time we called for some accountability in Washington. But hey, there's no big hurry. We've got four more years before we have to worry about it again.