16: Fraud Or Suppression? The Greater Of 2 Evils?

There is currently an issue surrounding ACORN - or Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - a company currently dedicated to getting voters registered. The problem is that they recently found about half of their registration forms to be fraudulent. They are now being accused of voter fraud - primarily by the Republicans. However, the Democrats are saying that by trying to stop what ACORN is doing, they are allowing voter supporession. This has also been called "The Republican War On Voting." This raises an issue which has been raised for years - the suppression of votes. This is what many Democrats claim the reason is behind Bush winning the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

While it is true that it is the fault of the people sending in the registration forms - the Republican argument is that this is a major threat to democracy - and could severely impact the way the vote turns out. They say this is fraud, and it is a felony. The Democratic argument is that the Republicans have far larger issues to be worrying about - and since the issue with the fraudulent votes is being taken care of, the Republicans shouldn't care if the valid forms go through, since it means more people would then be allowed to vote. This ties back into the original claim of voter suppression.

One thing to remember about this issue is that each political party has it's own agenda, and they are likely to have other (self-serving) reasons why they would or would not want ACORN to stay in tact. Since much of the unregistered voter population is Democratic, it is in the Democratic party's best interest to have ACORN continue to do it's job. Since the Republicans do not hold the majority of this unregistered voter's population, they are much less understanding of ACORN's situation, since it is not in their best interest. If the situation was reversed, however, and ACORN was primarily benefiting the Republican party, it is quite likely the Republicans would be the ones with no complaints, and the Democrats would be outraged.