Damn straight. And require legitimate IDs at the polling place in order to cast a ballot. And no more same-day register and vote schemes.

Put another way, why is this story any more credible than if it came from Axelrod’s own mouth?

A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often….

The majority of the problem applications are coming from the group ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has a large voter registration program among its many social service programs. ACORN’s Michigan branch, based in Detroit, has enrolled 200,000 voters statewide in recent months,

10-13-2008 Judge Strikes Down Mich. Voter Registration Rule
Examiner.com Detroit

DETROIT (Map, News) – A judge ordered Michigan election officials Monday to stop canceling a voter’s registration if the card is returned as undeliverable.

“The appearance of an out-of-state address on a driver’s license application simply does not establish that the applicant is no longer an eligible Michigan voter,” Murphy said.
…
Murphy said officials must go back as far as Jan. 1, 2006 to remove “rejected” markings from registrations tied to undeliverable voter cards, unless there was another legitimate reason for spiking them.

I heard on the radio yesterday that a judge ruled that undeliverables were not to be rejected, so I assume an appeal of the above had been denied

Murphy said nothing should prevent those voters from casting a ballot if they can produce additional proof of residency at the polls.

Michigan proof of residency any two documents that could be a letter from a landlord, utility bills, electronic copies of bank statements. Unless they collect the documnents at the polls (does anyone expect that will happen) any printed paper will get these votes certified

And, yes, submitting a bogus voter registration should be a crime with jail time attached.

highhopes on October 24, 2008 at 11:32 AM

Absolutely. It is an assault on the very fabric of our nation. 2 years federal pound-me-in-the-ass jailtime and revocation of citizenship.

Maybe there should be a Federal law or laws in each state that no one can be paid for collecting registrations.

slp on October 24, 2008 at 11:27 AM

Personally, I think this is attacking the wrong end of the problem. The emphasis shouldn’t be on where the registrations are coming from but whether or not they are valid in the first place. The registrars are in the best position to make that determination. And, yes, submitting a bogus voter registration should be a crime with jail time attached.

The registrars should have sole responsibility for registering voters, just the same way the DMV has the sole responsibility for licensing drivers.

That is a dumb idea.

The Republican and Democrat parties as well as the League of Women Voters have registration drives. They should continue.

Maybe there should be a Federal law or laws in each state that no one can be paid for collecting registrations.

If we value the legitimacy of citizen-elected government, we need to put tighter controls on participation to ensure that only citizens vote, and only vote once

.

That’s an open question. At present, I tend to think that we don’t value the legitimacy of citizen-elected government at all. Hence the ACORNS of the world get to openly commit fraud and not one blessed thing will happen to them other than public “condemnation” when people need to be going to jail for their crimes.

Voting is a right, and a privilege. If a person can’t find the time or take the time to register for themselves, then perhaps they are unworthy of exercising this fundamental right. Every four years for the past two decades we have been subject to all sorts of allegations about how unfair the voting process is. If you aren’t interested enough to register well before the four-year Presidential election, then what’s your problem? Too lazy? Too stupid?

Personal registration and photo ID at the time of registration and at the time of voting should be the law of the land. Anything less simply engenders fraud. Anything less simply makes a mockery of our Right to vote as American citizens.

What is so hard to understand?

What happened to the “other” 450,000 registrations NOT rejected by election officials? Are they all previously registered voters who moved to another city or state?

They didn’t even have to move to another city. The people ACORN targets are generally not homeowners; they may be expected to change addresses within the same city fairly often.

If the local election officers are doing their jobs, those people would not be able to vote using an old address, so while they technically aren’t new voters, some of them probably would have otherwise allowed their registrations to lapse. We just don’t have a way of knowing how many those are.

jgapinoy on October 24, 2008 at 8:55 AM

You got that right, Brother!

Exit question: They initially claimed 1.3 million registrations, and “roughly” 400,000 were rejected by election officials. That leaves “roughly” 900,000 which were NOT rejected by election officials, which is twice as many as Project VOTE now claims (450,000).

What happened to the “other” 450,000 registrations NOT rejected by election officials? Are they all previously registered voters who moved to another city or state? Will these people vote in both places? Are some of them fraudulent, but not rejected by election officials, either because they’re overwhelmed or deliberately look the other way?

And why DID Barack Obama give them $832K?