How I Committed Voter Fraud

This past week, I committed voter fraud. Or, I should say, "voter fraud" inside the same sarcastic scare quotes that John McCain deployed when he recently invoked that old tricky word "health," as in "health of the mother.

I didn't even need to take my cues from ACORN. I'm kind of a voter-fraud cell of one, you might say.

Here's how it went down.

Having moved to DC last year, I suddenly realized a week ago that I needed to register to vote at my new (disenfranchised) address by October 5th. So I dutifully printed out the form, filled it out and prepared to mail it. I happen to live in one of those pre-war apartment buildings that has a mail chute (side point: how great are mail chutes? why don't all buildings have them?). As I went to the mail chute to deposit my registration I encounter a problem: the chute hole was too small for the large registration form. So, foolishly, I folded it in half and stuffed it in. Immediately, I realized I'd made a terrible mistake. The form got about a foot down before getting stuck. I went and got a coat hanger, attempting to fish it out, but, of course, as always happens in these situations, only succeeded in pushing it further down. I resigned in despair and gaped: There was my precious franchise, tantalizingly close, and yet so far. What to do?

Since it was only a few days before the registration deadline I had no choice. The next day I printed out another form and mailed it in, from a mailbox on Capitol Hill. But here's where the serious, class A fraud comes in. That very same day, my excellent and competent building super had managed to get the mail chute unstuck, meaning there were now - gasp! - two identical registration forms speeding their way towards DC Board of Elections Headquarters. That's right, a fraudulent registration with my name on it. Oh noes!

Ok, so obviously this is absurd. I had no intent to defraud the DC Board of Elections, and certainly no intent nor means of voting twice, which is the actual theoretical danger being invoked here.

The faux-outrage that Republicans have marshaled over alleged voter fraud is so transparently faked, so expertly cynical it's almost surreal. When John McCain accused ACORN of being on the "verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history" Obama just broke down laughing. I was too. It was the only reasonable reaction.

But sure enough, they've managed to embed the notion deeply among the right-wing base and it's now bled into popular discussion. (Someone on ESPN made an ACORN, vote-fraud joke the other night, which is when I knew this had gotten out of hand).

As nearly everyone on the left has pointed out, this is an old routine. Every two years, Republicans gin up baseless accusations of "voter fraud," often directed at ACORN. The strategic imperative is simple: create a pretense that will allow them to more credibly hassle and hopefully suppress poor and minority voters.

Just to get this out of the way: in the real world, there is no such thing as voter fraud. There will be roughly as many fraudulent votes cast in this election as there were stockpiles of biological weapons in Iraq. That is to say, none. (See Dahlia Lithwick for more on this). But what about all those duplicate and obviously fake voter registration cards submitted by ACORN? you ask. They were required by law to submit them. (See Rick Hertzberg for more on this). In order to prevent tampering, state law in many places requires groups like ACORN to submit all the forms they collect, whether obviously erroneous or not.

Keep in mind that ACORN's registered somewhere around 1.3 million people this cycle. Not surprisingly, there are errors. Think of all the times you've eaten at a restaurant in your life. On the rare occasions when the restaurant totaled the tip wrong, were they trying to defraud you? Did you inform the cops of an attempted robbery? Are you suspicious of restaurants generally and view them as an enterprise committed to widespread fraud? No, of course not. You would have to be a paranoid doofus to believe that.

Indeed, the entire notion of a massive shadowy effort to subvert the election through wide-scale voter fraud has about as much credibility as the theory that the United States government perpetrated the attacks of 9/11. Like 9/11 conspiracy theories, it's easy to throw out a few tantalizing details--steel can't be melted by fire! Mickey Mouse registered to vote in Florida!--that, if introduced in the periphery, amidst the noise of daily life, can reasonably sow some vague suspicion in the mind of a generally rational person that something dark and far-reaching is being hidden from us. But if you take a step back and try to actually think through the idea in any serious fashion it falls apart faster than wet tissue paper.

Let's do it anyway. Imagine ACORN wanted to pull off a massive campaign of voter fraud. What would that look like? Well, first they'd probably want to target swing states. And if they were going to undertake the task, they'd have to set up a goal of delivering a certain amount of votes in each of these states, say, just to be conservative, 500. Now, if they were planning on stealing or buying that many votes in each swing state, it's pretty unlikely they would be sending out press releases every day publicizing their work, boasting about their voter registration numbers and inviting reporters like myself to come shadow their workers. Indeed, it's unclear why they would bother registering too many people to begin with. Just how would 1.3 million extra registrations aid them in pulling off their fraud? How do all those extra registrations help any one person vote twice?

In fact, the easiest, most direct way to commit fraud would be to find 500 people and simply pay them to register and then vote the way you want. But doing that wouldn't be aided by a widespread voter registration drive with lots of faulty registrations. Indeed, that would only draw unwarranted attention! And if some organization were to attempt some plot to pay lots of people who ordinarily don't vote to register and then vote the way they say, what are the odds that would stay secret? Approximately zero.

In other words, the ACORN-Truthers persist in believing something that on its face is manifestly and obviously absurd. But this isn't some fringe movement. This is being cynically fomented by everyone in the entire right-wing noise machine, from talk radio, to Fox News, all the way up to the actual members of the ticket, Sarah Palin and John McCain. My suspicion is that the people who are fomenting this garbage, the RNC, Sarah Palin, Fox News and others know that it's bullshit.

But for frank political reasons they are heavily invested in reducing the number of poor people and black people who vote. Black people are going to vote for Barack Obama in overwhelming, historic numbers. Poor people vote for Democrats by massive margins as well. Ergo, the Republicans want to keep them home. Simple as that. Increasing the likelihood that these voters are struck from the roles, or intimidated into staying home redounds to their benefit.

Then there's the rank and file, the members of the GOP's base who've been told by their leaders that there actually is a massive conspiracy afoot and whose belief to that effect have now so hardened that no bit of logic, reason or evidence will puncture it. This is dangerous stuff.

If Obama wins, we are going to be living with this for a while. Not only is this a deeply cynical attempt to subvert the democratic process itself, to roll back the clock to the days of yore when the franchise was a bit more, ahem, heavily restricted. It is also an attempt to deny Barack Obama, the Democratic party and the center-left a legitimate claim at state power.

In the meantime, it is, as it so often is, up to the media to call this what it is: deranged and paranoid. Anyone who implies or accuses ACORN of pulling off a fraud of historic proportions should be treated by the media with about as much deference as those who say 9/11 was an inside job.

Comments (41)

1. nice little chart with justice department stats on "voter fraud":::::

   http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/autorank

   /Articles/VoterFraudProjectVote.jpg

   Posted by frosty zoom at 10/19/2008 @ 11:55pm

2. the goldman (more like fiatman) sacks'o'debts clique at the treasury:

   http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/business/19gold.html?em

   **so, who you voting for, chris?

   Posted by frosty zoom at 10/19/2008 @ 11:59pm

3. i think the rightwing are just projecting their way of working on their opponants.

   suprising?

   Posted by dexter666 at 10/20/2008 @ 12:07am

4. hi ibbbbbbbbbl

   this is a good site:

   http://agonist.org/

   Posted by frosty zoom at 10/20/2008 @ 12:09am

5. Posted by frosty zoom at 10/20/2008 @ 12:09am | ignore this person | warn this person

   added to my favorites...

   Posted by dexter666 at 10/20/2008 @ 12:17am

6. Voter fraud happens.

   It has always happened.

   It will always happen.

   If a candidate can't deal with voter fraud, don't put her/his name in the hat.

   Both sides are victims (or beneficaries).

   What's the fuss about?

   Posted by bleedingheart at 10/20/2008 @ 12:30am

7. So if every redirect in Wasilla were to commit voter fraud, that would amount to 2270.32 times the amount of voter fraud of the whole of the lower 48.

   Posted by winyahn at 10/20/2008 @ 12:40am

8. Oh noes! LOL. :D

   I'm pseudo outraged...and demand my $100.00 "Vote Obama" payment back. Do make certain it doesn't get stuck in the cool mail chute? ;)

   Posted by Mrs_O at 10/20/2008 @ 12:42am

9. tablet handwriting error!

   So if every redirect in Wasilla...

   Posted by winyahn at 10/20/2008 @ 12:42am

10. A very interesting piece, to be sure. To start off, I'm not entirely sure I buy his claim that voter fraud basically doesn't exist. How difficult is it to show up on election day with a fake ID? Unless my information is mistaken, ID's generally aren't vetted even as thoroughly as the IDs of under-21s trying to buy alcohol, at least to some degree because people want to keep the lines moving. That said, I do agree that the incentive structure for any one individual person strongly weighs against ever committing voter fraud, though I think we should be a little less cavalier than Mr. Hayes is in dismissing it.

    On the other hand, the ACORN responses are fairly solid. The ones he links to are strong (IF true; none of them seem to warrant the claim that ACORN was required by law to act as it did). His own justifications, though, are a little iffy. After all, the best way to hide a problem is to create the illusion of transparency, or to hide your 500 skewed votes in a sea of legitimate ones.

    The real problem, though, comes in his bald assertion that this whole issue is designed to keep black people from voting. If he's going to impute those kinds of motives, he'd better do a lot more than just assert it. Fraud can exist, and people who really care about this can certainly have a motive to rig it their way. To assume that those concerned about this possibility are just trying to stop black people voting is a gigantic assertion in desperate search of a justification.

    Posted by Thrawn at 10/20/2008 @ 01:28am

11. Christopher Hayes writes: <b> "Why believing ACORN is stealing the election is like believing 9/11 was an inside job. . ."</b>

    That is dishonest and twisted.

    The conviction by many radicals, that 9/11 was the work of the CIA or Mossad , is demonstrably untrue. Nothing except dementia, paranoia and malice support it.

    That ACORN however has registered and sought to register thousands of patently ineligible people is not a matter of rumor, or conjecture or hallucination. It is a matter of long lists of ineligible names in the possession of election registrars in various states.

    In every signing up of voters ineligible names slip in. Redundancies and innocent mistakes of various kinds are usual and unavoidable; they are no big deal. Every election has some of that.

    But when such mistakes and redundancies slip in by the hundreds and even thousands - then we are talking about fraud, and voter fraud, regardless of what little Christopher thinks, is not funny - unless you are the kind of "cool" lefty with only contempt for fairness and no respect for honest elections.

    Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 10/20/2008 @ 04:19am

12. look - the acorn thing IS worth investigating, but...

    is mickey mouse actually going to vote?

    Posted by dexter666 at 10/20/2008 @ 07:09am

13. To assume that those concerned about this possibility are just trying to stop black people voting is a gigantic assertion in desperate search of a justification.

    Posted by Thrawn at 10/20/2008 @ 01:28am

    just check out the line ups at the polls in the 34,5676,566,5,6,,556.3 district where only one voting machine is "working" and people must be fingerprinted before they vote.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 10/20/2008 @ 09:27am

14. It's disheartening (as it is meant to be) not to mention frustrating to watch this all go down (again) The majority of Americans who watched the perpertration of an open theft of an election back in 2000 (or how a murderer of his ex-wife and her friend got off in view of the whole world) remember that it IS possble that Barack Obama could have this election stolen from him and the American people with all the familiar tactics; Distract; Confuse with minutia; Distort half-truths then mix with bold-faced lies and start screaming "Fire" in a crowded building and you may cause enough panic and doubt to pull it off. My only hope is that in this age of information that the much-maligned media helps us fight back hard with the truth and we beat these practices back to the dark age of suppression and distortion where they belong.

    Posted by wordsbybecca at 10/20/2008 @ 09:40am

15. 'Due to concerns about the spread of fire, many cities have banned the construction of mail chutes in new buildings. Chutes provide a great chimney for draft, and historically fed vicious fires in some high rise buildings. Older buildings with mail chutes can continue to use their chutes, although many have sealed their chutes off because of the high volume of mail which must be processed, and because mail in general has become much more costly, making mail chutes difficult to operate in a cost-effective way.' -- http:/ /www.wisegeek.com/ what-is-a-mail-chute.htm

    Posted by HonestLiberal at 10/20/2008 @ 09:53am

16. "That ACORN however has registered and sought to register thousands of patently ineligible people is not a matter of rumor, or conjecture or hallucination. It is a matter of long lists of ineligible names in the possession of election registrars in various states."

    But even if a bunch of fake names were added to the voter rolls, in order for these people to vote, a person would have to have proof that they were, in fact, Mickey Mouse (to use a popular example).

    So, let's say members of ACORN were really trying to steal the election. After they got all these fake names registered, they'd have to first of all, obtain forms of ID for each fake person that were registered, and then organize enough people willingly to go to all the different polling places these fake people were registered at and cast multiple votes during the election.

    The scale of accomplishing this to the magnitude that it would swing an election, without getting caught, seems far-fetched to me.

    I think conservatives are willingly to believe this could happen though, because they are ready to believe any negative rumors about Obama, no matter how improbable, just like liberals are willingly to believe 9/11 was an inside job because they already have a negative opinion of Bush.

    Posted by metinker at 10/20/2008 @ 10:16am

17. Trying to talk logic and sense to people who believe in massive conspiracies is pointless.It's virtually impossible to keep small conspiracies from becoming known about let alone massive conspiracies like 9/11 and ACORN conspiracy theories.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 10/20/2008 @ 10:33am

18. I know its a waste of time trying to change minds that are already made up, but when I receive a particularly egregious email forward about how evil Obama is, I hit Reply to All and paste in a relevant snopes.com link.

    Posted by jillers at 10/20/2008 @ 11:20am

19. The voter fraud issue is such an important tool for the GOP - that they have stepped it up in Cincinnati. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, who is John McCain's southwest Ohio campaign chairman, issued a subpoena for complete registration records for roughly 40 percent of the 671 voters who registered and voted between Sept. 30, when early voting began, and Oct. 6, the voter registration deadline.

    The subpoena is part of a grand jury investigation initiated by Deters in the county.

    Deters recused himself from the investigation today, after receiving much criticism for his perceived conflict of interest.

    Things here in Ohio are really heating up and I expect election results to be hotly contested - and many poor and minority voters to be challenged going forward. It's really pathetic that our society has degenerated to this state.

    Posted by alatea at 10/20/2008 @ 12:39pm

20. I agree with your article. The idea that the Democrats are trying to fix the election through ACORN and voter fraud is as false as the idea that the Republicans have been trying to fix elections through the suppression of minority voters. "You would have to be a paranoid doofus to believe" either of these arguments.

    Posted by GBGB at 10/20/2008 @ 1:16pm

21. The conviction by many radicals, that 9/11 was the work of the CIA or Mossad , is demonstrably untrue. Nothing except dementia, paranoia and malice support it.

    Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 10/20/2008 @ 04:19am | ignore this person | warn this person

    "Demonstrably Untrue"? What source are you relying on? Disbelief? 9/11 Commission? Demonstrably implies that all information has come to light. This is far from the case. Perhaps you are referring only to the CIA and Mossad.

    Posted by OneVote at 10/20/2008 @ 1:16pm

22. ***I know its a waste of time trying to change minds that are already made up, but when I receive a particularly egregious email forward about how evil Obama is, I hit Reply to All and paste in a relevant snopes.com link.****

    I do the same thing, people come up with the most ridiculous stuff, and this outrage over ACORN is the latest thing. I can't help but think of Chris Rock's statement, that even if Obama wins, they'll probably figure out a way to change the rules so that he doesn't win. "But I got the most electoral votes!" "Sorry that's how we USED to do it." This conspiracy theory about ACORN is just a ploy to a)suppress voters and b)have grounds to dispute the votes in swing states. It really is shameful, especially for a party that loves to point out how un-American everyone is, they're the first to strip away our democratic values.

    Posted by desiraen at 10/20/2008 @ 1:22pm

23. AMY GOODMAN: I just wanted to say, the story goes beyond that. I was saying this was in the Washington Post; it was actually in the Congressional Quarterly, that they were prepared to say publicly that under pressure from the CIA, they kept the full truth from the Justice Department's inspector general, which looked into the FBI's handling of the pre-9/11 intelligence in 2004.

    JAMES BAMFORD: Well, not only that, the 9/11 Commission, which did a pretty poor job on a lot of this, they never looked at any of the information that I'm reporting on the National Security Agency, and they also never interviewed either Rossini or Doug Miller, the two FBI agents in there. I mean, it seems incredible to me that the 9/11 Commission never interviewed the two FBI agents who were assigned to the bin Laden unit. So that's part of the story that's never been told, that the American public just has no idea of some of these things that took place leading up to 9/11.

    Source: DemocracyNow: The Shadow Factory.........

    Poor analogy Hayes.........try again.

    Posted by OneVote at 10/20/2008 @ 1:29pm

24. How difficult is it to show up on election day with a fake ID? Unless my information is mistaken, ID's generally aren't vetted even as thoroughly as the IDs of under-21s trying to buy alcohol, at least to some degree because people want to keep the lines moving.Posted by Thrawn at 10/20/2008 @ 01:28am

    Where I vote, IDs are vetted. It happens everytime I vote. When you present your ID, they check it against a database. When I was going to a smaller precint, there was a printout of the names of every voter in that precint. They would take my ID and check it against the printout. I don't know. Maybe they don't do that where you vote.

    Posted by k330k at 10/20/2008 @ 1:50pm

25. I can understand it being voter registration fraud but not voter fraud. Unless you have people showing up to the polls with IDs saying they are in fact members of the Dallas Cowboys, where does the actual voter fraud occur?

    Posted by k330k at 10/20/2008 @ 1:54pm

26. (or how a murderer of his ex-wife and her friend got off in view of the whole world) Posted by wordsbybecca at 10/20/2008

    Geez Louise! I can't believe people are still on the O.J. shit. Damn. I've never seen a man affect so many people even though his actions had ZERO bearing on their lives. Unless you are part of the Simpson, Goldman, or Brown family. GET OVER IT!

    Posted by k330k at 10/20/2008 @ 2:00pm

27. ...and when was the last article in The Nation about Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney, or Sacco and Vanzetti, for that matter?

    Posted by Mistral at 10/20/2008 @ 2:08pm

28. Here's a new slogan: GET UNDER IT!

    Posted by Mistral at 10/20/2008 @ 2:09pm

29. Good analogy, Mr hayes....

    20 years from now (with an Obama win) the cries from the Right of "Obama STOLE the 2008 election" will still be going on....

    just as we'll NEVER get out from under the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories!

    Posted by Maskdelta at 10/20/2008 @ 3:05pm

30. Good analogy, Mr hayes....

    20 years from now (with an Obama win) the cries from the Right of "Obama STOLE the 2008 election" will still be going on....

    just as we'll NEVER get out from under the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories!

    Posted by Maskdelta at 10/20/2008 @ 3:05pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    If his analogy is that both theories will never be proved or disproved (like the Kennedy assassination) then the analogy is perhaps appropriate. Maybe I missed something....I thought he was implying that both are "crazy" conspiracy theories because they challenge the integrity of the system which is based on a human construct that has failed us time and time again. Perhaps he should have made his analogy slightly more restrictive "is like in this respect."

    In Hayes own words.........

    "In other words, the ACORN-Truthers persist in believing something that on its face is manifestly and obviously absurd"

    Being 10% right doesn't excuse being 90% wrong......but nice try Mask.

    Posted by OneVote at 10/20/2008 @ 4:19pm

31. 'James Fennimore Cooper once observed, "It is a governing principle of nature, that the agency which can produce most good, when perverted from its proper aim, is most productive of evil. It behooves the well-intentioned, therefore, vigorously to watch the tendency of even their most highly prized institutions, since that which was established in the interests of the right, may so easily become the agent of the wrong."'

    Geoff Metcalf - US Intelligence Failures and 9/11 - 12/22/03 - Newsmax.com

    Posted by OneVote at 10/20/2008 @ 6:29pm

32. A former top Department of Justice voting rights official -- who once worked with John McCain in defense of the senator's campaign-finance reform bill -- has added his name to the growing chorus that is denouncing the department's investigation of ACORN as a shameful and inappropriate politicization of Justice along the lines of the US attorney firings.

    Gerry Hebert described the investigation, word of which was leaked off the record to the Associated Press less than three weeks before the election, as "a continuation of injecting DOJ into what has clearly become a political issue."

    Posted by Lillian at 10/21/2008 @ 12:41am

33. Since the news was reported last week that the FBI, less than three weeks before the election, is launching a voter-registration-fraud investigation into ACORN, we've seen a number of former top DOJ voting-rights officials --as well as former US attorney David Iglesias -- denounce the probe as an inappropriate politicization of the department.

    an indictment for voter fraud against four ACORN voter-registration workers, filed by Bradley Schlozman, an interim US attorney in Kansas City, just five days before a close Missouri Senate election. Schlozman later was investigated for possible perjury after testifying to Congress that he was "directed" by main DOJ to pursue the indictment, then filing a "clarification" in which he took "full responsibility" for the prosecution.

    Noting that the Bush administration appears to be using the Department of Justice to pursue politically motivated voter-fraud investigations, even after getting caught red-handed doing so in the scandal over the US attorney firings, Rich added: "There is no shame."

    Posted by Lillian at 10/21/2008 @ 12:43am

34. Your title is a very poorly chosen analogy, Chris. The Republican ACORN scam actually bears a distant resemblance to the 911 scam. But since only Robert Scheer has been willing to buck the editorial policy of The Nation, which has made a free investigation of the latter taboo, I suggest readers go to www.alternet.org (http://www.alternet.org/rights/100688/the_ultimate_9_11_%27truth%27_sho wdown%3A_david_ray_griffin_vs._matt_taibbi/) to see how the great process philosopher David Ray Griffin trounces Rolling Stone's 911 conspiracy debunker Matt Taibbi in their head-to-head debate on the issue.

    Posted by Carefulreader at 10/21/2008 @ 04:06am

35. To assume that those concerned about this possibility are just trying to stop black people voting is a gigantic assertion in desperate search of a justification. Posted by Thrawn at 10/20/2008 @ 01:28am

    Can't agree more here. That kind of assertion requires just as much evidence as he is proposing you need to show that there is large scale voter fraud. They are both conspiracy theories that thrive on a lack of evidence and to make the bald of an accusation you need to show proof not just make the statement, just as you need to show proof that there is large scale voter fraud and not just making the accusation.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 10/21/2008 @ 12:51pm

36. Posted by Carefulreader at 10/21/2008 @ 04:06am | ignore this person | warn this person

    Excellent link. Taibbi has his head handed to him. Seriously outclassed. By the way check out the foul mouthed Bill Maher on YouTube regarding:

    'On October 19, 2007 Maher had several conspiracy theorist hecklers ejected from his show audience when they interrupted the show numerous times by calling out from the audience.[21] This drew significant media attention and even praise from Fox News talk show host and frequent critic John Gibson, who stated, "I bet next week I'll be angry or annoyed at something Maher says. But this week, it's hats off to Bill for a job well done."[22]'

    Source: Wikipedia

    It seems that Matt Taibbi is a regular contributor for Bill Maher.

    Tell you what....I'll believe the conspiracy theory of a Navy Seal over that of a NY comedian anyday. Funny thing is that the debunk 9/11 Truthers are too arrogant (or too stupid) to realize that what they are peddling is a conspiracy theory in itself. Manifestly and obviously absurb my ass.

    Posted by OneVote at 10/21/2008 @ 2:53pm

37. Looks like Mr. Hayes also writes articles for The New Repubic whose editor in chief and former owner was Martin Peretz.

    'In March 1974, the magazine was purchased for $380,000[9] by Harvard University lecturer Martin Peretz,[10] from Gilbert Harrison.[9] Peretz was a veteran of the New Left who had broken with that movement over its support of various Third World liberationist movements, particularly the Palestine Liberation Organization. Peretz transformed TNR into its current form. Under his ownership, TNR has advocated both strong U.S. support for the Israeli government and a hawkish U.S. foreign policy.[9]...... Support for Israel has been another strong theme in the New Republic. According to Peretz, "Support for Israel is deep down an expression of America's best view of itself." [4] According to CUNY journalism professor, Eric Alterman, "Nothing has been as consistent about the past 34 years of TNR as the magazine's devotion to Peretz's own understanding of what is good for Israel…It is really not too much to say that almost all of Peretz's political beliefs are subordinate to his commitment to Israel's best interests, and these interests as Peretz defines them almost always involve more war."[5]

    Unsigned editorials prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq expressed strong support for military action, citing the threat of WMD as well as humanitarian concerns. Since the end of major military operations, unsigned editorials, while critical of the handling of the war, have continued to justify the invasion on humanitarian grounds, but no longer maintain that Iraq's WMD facilities posed any threat to the United States.......' Source: Wikipedia

    Posted by OneVote at 10/21/2008 @ 5:42pm

38. Posted by jillers at 10/20/2008 @ 11:20am

    That is one of my favorite online activities.

    Posted by drhammer at 10/22/2008 @ 10:41am

39. I have read (and forwarded) many informative and insightful articles and videos that explain quite succinctly how the bogeyman of "voter fraud", in this context, is actually voter registration fraud. No one with an internet connection and an iota of intellectual initiative could perceive this ACORN nonsense as anything but a trumped-up excuse to suppress the potential Democratic vote. Add to that the (documented) reality that the wingers have been chasing ACORN regularly throughout past election cycles, yet have produced but the smallest handful of prosecutions.

    This is pure bamboozlement, designed to distract us from the many and varied forms of vote suppression employed by the Republicans. With every passing day, (and despite the worst efforts of our commercial media), I grow increasingly convinced that these types of shenanigans will be even less successful than in the past.

    Now if we could only do something about the fucking voting machines...

    Posted by drhammer at 10/22/2008 @ 11:07am

40. From Planning.com:

    "Gap between rich, poor in U.S. among widest in world

    Economic inequality is growing in the world's richest countries, particularly in the United States, jeopardizing the American Dream of social mobility just as the world tilts toward recession, a 30- nation report said yesterday.

    The gap between rich and poor has widened over the last 20 years in nearly all the countries studied, even as trade and technological advances have spurred rapid growth in their economies.

    With job losses and home foreclosures skyrocketing and many of these countries now facing recession, policy makers must act quickly to prevent a surge in populist and protectionist sentiment as was seen following the Great Depression, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said.

    "What will happen if the next decade is not one of world growth but of world recession? If a rising tide didn't lift all boats, how will they be affected by an ebbing tide?" Oxford University economist Anthony Atkinson said at a conference at the OECD headquarters."

    this is a fact, as much as mccain's owning 13 plus houses and having billions he didn't earn from his trophy wife....how does mccain possibly CONNECT with 'real americans"??????

    what else is there to know???

    mccain's willful igorance doesn't have to be copied by americans...if you continue to be ignorant, then electoral college will still have a place....

    if you vote for trickle down bullshit, say it is fine tcut all spending on "regular" things for "regular" people while saying only parts of the country are "real america"...using some guy who is as fake as mccain to represent "working class" is so disengenuous....if any american has half a brain or any self-respect whatsoever...VOTE OBAMA!!!

    Posted by jrs112 at 10/22/2008 @ 12:26pm

41. Christopher Hayes, No one is going to believe a damn thing you write if you only write echo room views and ignore inconvient facts.

    I despise any author on the left or the right who chooses to only mention facts which support their narrow ideology.

    Several employees committed voter fraud, and are being prosecuted, this is a fact which you completly ignore. Your example of double voter registrations is not the same as someone filling out a voter registration fradulently.

    Again, readers will begin to question your veracity and honesty if you continue to ignore inconvient facts. Readers get their news from the Nation magazine, someone not familar with this scandal may read your article and take everything at face value, coming away angry at the GOP.

    I know this is your noble intention, the problem is when these same readers will read somewhere else what you intentionally choose to exclude. This article not only makes you look bad, but it reflects badly on The Nation magazine.

    You could have still had a decent article without lies of ommision.

    Posted by travb at 10/22/2008 @ 2:41pm