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Calif. GOP Had Same Registration Issues As ACORN
California GOP had Same Voter Registration Problems as ACORN in 2006
Mistakes in big voter registration drives are inevitable, even in Republican campaigns
By Steven
Rosenfeld
Posted October 14, 2008
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California GOP had Same Voter Registration
Problems as ACORN in 2006
Faked names on voter registration forms. Error rates as high as 60 percent. Firing the people responsible for these errors. Investigations launched by local and state police. Sound familiar? This is not ACORN in the 2008 election's final days.
This is the California Republican Party and its contractors in 2006, when the same problems that are now dogging ACORN and providing political fodder for GOP attacks plagued an effort by California Republicans to register 750,000 people.
The details were all spelled out in a series of Los Angeles Times stories, which quoted former California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres saying these kinds of errors are inevitable "when you use private vendors." Even the state's top election official in 2006, Republican Bruce McPherson, was forced to investigate his own party's actions.
These same issues surfaced again last week as ACORN, the low-income advocacy organization which ran 2008's largest voter drive apart from political parties with 1.3 million new voters, was hammered by the GOP for submitting falsified voter registrations. The GOP's attacks have increased and even John McCain is saying that ACORN's actions are proof the Democrats are trying to steal the 2008 election.
"My friends… they must be investigated, and they must be investigated immediately and they must be stopped before November the fourth, so Americans will not -- will not -- be deprived of a fair process in this election," McCain said at a Wisconsin town hall meeting on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, two former U.S. senators who support McCain held a National Press Club briefing where they said voter registration problems could lead to a "nightmare" election in November.
The only thing ACORN's errors prove is that mistakes in big voter registration drives are inevitable, no matter who conducts them. When you look at all the other problems in the nation's voting systems -- from poorly designed ballots to electronic machines that lose votes cast -- the larger truth is every aspect of American elections is imperfect.
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See…
California GOP had Same Voter Registration
Problems as ACORN in
2006
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