How Acorn works

One of the people whom Acorn signed up multiple times to vote is quite open about why he registered 72 times.

A man at the center of a voter-registration scandal told The Post yesterday he was given cash and cigarettes by aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 72 times, in apparent violation of Ohio laws.

"Sometimes, they come up and bribe me with a cigarette, or they'll give me a dollar to sign up," said Freddie Johnson, 19, who filled out 72 separate voter-registration cards over an 18-month period at the behest of the left-leaning Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

"The ACORN people are everywhere, looking to sign people up. I tell them I am already registered. The girl said, 'You are?' I say, 'Yup,' and then they say, 'Can you just sign up again?' " he said.

Now that news is coming out about multi-state investigations into what Acorn has been doing when they've been registering people to vote, it's time for a more general investigation. What we have now is news from seven different states about investigations into Acorn.

Hundreds of fake registrations in Missouri.
Connecticut is looking into reports of fake registrations inculding a seven-year old girl.
In Wisconsin there are charges of using felons to register people to vote.
In Ohio, Acorn tells registration officials that they can't distinguish the fraudulent forms that they are turning in and so the overworked voting officials should please do it for them.
In Indianapolis, 105% of adults have been registered to vote.
In Nevada, they've raided Acorn's headquarters due to so many suspicious registrations turned in.
There are also investigations in other states such as Michigan, North Carolina, and New Mexico.
(Links via Michelle Malkin and Ed Morrissey)

The problem originates from the way that Acorn does business. When people are paid and evaluated based on how many forms they turn in, there is a natural incentive for workers to start falsifying the names on the registration forms. Since election laws require third-party registers to turn in all the forms that they get filled out, even those they think are illegitimate, they end up turning in thousands of registrations to election officials who then have to spend the time verifying each one. Acorn can claim that they're just as upset as anyone else that there are these fraudulent forms and that they're cooperating with authorities. But they have set up a system that encourages this sort of fraud. Their workers are hounding people to register even when they're told that they have already registered. It has happened previously in other elections. The whole system of how these people work needs to be reformed. On the face of it, there is nothing wrong with trying to increase voter participation, but when you're working with a system that facilitates or encourages fraud then they need to change their system.