Saturday, December 26, 2009

ACORN Cleared of Voting Fraud

ACORN is a favorite chew toy for the wingnuts, the rabid fear mongers that they are:
A new report on the community group Acorn by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has found no evidence of fraudulent voting or of violations of federal financing rules by the group in the past five years.

Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, requested the report along with Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts. Mr. Conyers released the report on Tuesday.

Acorn, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has drawn fire from conservative activists who have accused it of conducting fraudulent voter registration drives in poor neighborhoods, adding imaginary voters like Mickey Mouse to the rolls. The report by the research service, an arm of the Library of Congress, said, however, that a search using the Nexis news database “did not identify any reported instances of such individuals attempting to vote at the polls.” NYT
For the conservatives/wingnuts, who get off on exploiting fears, factual evidence means absolutely nothing to them:
Acorn hailed the report in a statement, but Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa and one of the most vocal critics of Acorn in the House, said he found the report unconvincing.

“This report doesn’t begin to cover the transgressions of Acorn,” Mr. King said. “I think Acorn is bigger than Watergate.”