Ethics

How ACORN Flags Bad Registration Cards

By Ed Brayton

Three weeks ago, Drew Griffin of CNN's Special Investigations Unit filed a report (watch the video here) about fraudulent applications turned in by ACORN in Lake County, Indiana. In the report, he made a point of showing a registration card turned in under the name Jimmy John's, a popular restaurant, by a canvasser named Dain Tarvor. Griffin even included a cheap stunt, filming himself going to Jimmy John's and asking people there if they'd turned in the card.

The Republican National Committee immediately sent out a press release with a transcript of the CNN report and this obviously fraudulent voter registration application became the talk of the blogosphere. What was missing from the report and the resulting reaction was the fact that ACORN had not only flagged that application and several others as fraudulent, but had fired the canvassers who turned them in.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on November 03, 2008 (boomark / email).