Tree of governmental illegitimacy growing from ACORN
I remember an old joke from when I was a child, a “Little Johnny” joke. It went something like this:
Little Johnny was sitting at his desk in class, crying his eyes out. The teacher asked Little Johnny what the problem was, why he seemed so sad. Little Johnny replied that his dead Daddy came down from Heaven to vote for Lyndon Johnson for Senate and did not bother to come see him (Little Johnny).
As I said, it was an old joke. What isn’t a joke is that dead people seem to be coming back to register to vote and some may come back to vote. Fraudulent registration, enabling fraudulent voting is occurring at an alarming rate.
If people believe that rampant insider trading is going on, that the “fix is in,” and that the market is not fair because people are stacking the deck, then that market is in danger of collapse, as soon no one is willing to participate in an unfair game. By the same token, if people believe that the “fix is in” in elections, that someone or some group is fixing the election, as was feared in Florida in the 2000 election, then democracy itself and the legitimacy to rule by those elected, comes under attack and is subject to destruction.
Currently, in Missouri, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada, Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina, many of which are considered swing states, the community group, ACORN, is being investigated for voter registration fraud.
My distrust of ACORN is not new. In 2006, I wrote a post here about ACORN, and mentioned the registration fraud case that was shaping up in Missouri. This past April, guilty pleas were entered for eight ACORN workers in St. Louis for submitting false registration cards in that 2006 election. And now, ACORN is up to its same old tricks. Registrations in this election are sure to break records, with registrations of dead people, of people who have already registered a dozen times, of cartoon characters and baseball players, and of people with non-existent addresses, social security numbers and drivers license numbers. People are getting paid to register with money and with cigarettes (and who knows what other forms of enticement).
One wonders what drives a group like ACORN to obtain false registrations if they do not intend to have someone vote using those registrations, and swing outcomes in swing states. It looks as if a tree is taking root from ACORN, a tree upon which our democracy can be hung until death.
-MC