Connecticut Local Politics

A couple of points that should be made clear about the allegations referenced below:

With the upsurge in voter registration activity has come more media attention to the handful of cases in which organizations have been accused of submitting fraudulent registration applications to local elections officials. No amount of fraud in the registration process is acceptable, but the accusations that voter fraud �is breaking out all over�47 as a result of �a coordinated effort by members of some organizations to rig the electoral system through voter registration fraud� that put �thousands of fictional voters�48 on the rolls are unsupported by any credible evidence anyone has been able to bring to bear. [47 footnotes to Michelle Malkin and 48 to the, now defunct, American Center for Voting Rights]

Here is the procedure from an email I received from ACORN:

ACORN uses rigorous quality control procedures to track all voter registration applications that are collected by our staff and members. Every batch of voter registration cards collected is examined by trained call staff which calls and confirms that individuals who filled out voter registration applications provided accurate information with the intent of registering to vote. Cards are designated either as verified, that we were unable to contact the applicant, or in some cases are set aside as problematic. When problematic cards are identified we conduct a thorough investigation, taking appropriate action with both staff and elections officials. Our quality control department is separate and distinct from our voter registration program, with separate management and staffing structures, to ensure its integrity.
…
Our policy is to submit to the registrar of voters every card that we gather as part of a voter registration drive — including cards that are incomplete or that we might identify as problematic cards. Every time we turn in voter registration applications to the registrars office, all problematic cards as separated out and set aside. We at that point have done our part to turn in all the good cards to the proper authorities so that we get people onto the rolls, but also in alerting authorities to any potentially problematic cards. Unfortunately in some cases elections officials, rather than focusing on the work of making sure that as many eligible applicants are put on the voting rolls as possible, instead have pointed to the cards which, in many cases we have already identified as problematic, and attempted to turn them into a press story.
…
We will be working soon to compare our list of people whom we assisted in filling out registrations with the official lists of registered voters in the City and in all Connecticut municipalities where we concentrated our work. Our studies have shown that many of the address or matching problems that Board find with applications from low income communities are actually database problems, including postal delivery problems and false negative matches with identification number databases. We look forward to working with elections officials to identify and resolve any discrepancies, as we remain focused on our goal of increasing participation in our democracy.

This is one of the consequences of essentially �outsourcing� voter registration to the private sector rather than placing the burden of registration on the state as is done in many of the European democracies.46 If voter registration were mandatory like paying taxes, voter registration drives would not be necessary. [46 footnoted to The National Commission on Election Reform Task Force on the Federal Election System]

[After discussing the interconnection between the RNC and the leadership of ACVR and the tactics used to inflate claims of voter fraud to push voter ID legislation] The systematic use of baseless voter fraud allegations is strategic and in this sense rational, if unethical. In the late nineteenth century when freedmen were swept into electoral politics and where blacks were the majority of the electorate, it was the Democrats who were threatened by a loss of power, and it was the Democratic party that erected new rules they claimed were necessary to respond to the alleged fraud of black voters.

Today, the success of voter registration drives among minorities and low income people in recent years threatens to expand the base of the Democratic party and tip the balance of power away from the Republicans. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why party operatives might seek to strategically generate enough public support for new restrictions on the vote that will disproportionately hinder opposition voters.40 [Pf. Spencer Overton and the NYU Brennan Center for Justice] … In the end, baseless voter fraud claims are essentially political acts because the contested history of party, race and class in American politics makes them so.

Here, Election Journal’s story came out, and the next day Republican State Chairman Healy cited it in calling for an investigation, “The actions of this group should be viewed with suspicion, given the other cases across the nation.” [Strangely, he doesn't mention ACORN's role in uncovering and reporting the fraud before submitting the registrations. Oh, well. Bygones.] This mirrors the recent case of Virginia, where the Republican State Party Chair claimed “a coordinated and widespread effort in Virginia to commit voter fraud” and urged voters to not register to vote via canvassers. The Washington Post debunked his claims the next day:

The allegation of a “very serious and troubling trend” of registration fraud, identified by Mr. Frederick alone, is unsupported by election officials, police or prosecutors.
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[I]t is groundless accusations and cynical fear-mongering such as Mr. Frederick’s that are injecting the real venom, and the true threat, into the elections.

As did Time. Time also notes that the organization itself had uncovered and reported the fraud.

This isn’t an example of citizens uncovering fraud and getting mad about it – it is the case of Republican operatives and state party chairs doing what they can to hinder voter registration by reporting on “voter fraud” and organized and widespread campaigns by outside organizations leaving out exculpating facts that tend to show that the organizations themselves are being more diligent than the Registrars (after all – Registrar Borges noted that not all of the registrations that were turned in by the deadline were processed in time for the registrants to be on the rolls by the Primary. An enterprising reporter might want to determine if anyone was turned away because of this. And Bridgeport might want to prepare now for processing registrations in the days leading up to November – I’ve heard this might be an exciting election that could generate interest and turnout).

Keep that in mind as you read more and more of these allegations demonizing ACORN and other groups that work hard to get voters registered and to uncover and report fraud.