on the voter fraud charges

we're starting to see a real uptick in the charges of voter fraud around the country (warning: extreme rightward slant). This has started to manifest itself with assaults on the offices of voter registration groups. What you're actually seeing is a reprise of the 2006 elections and the raison d'etre of the Attorney Firing Scandal (which cost ol' Alberto "Abu" Gonzales his job, and is still looking for one).

The reason folks like David Iglesias was fired was because he would not press charges against groups like ACORN for voter fraud. Iglesias, a Republican appointee, studied the matter and found that there was no actual instances of voter fraud (people voting under an assumed name, so that you can vote twice). Rules were bent in following the Justice Department rules for raising charges during an election season (typically frowned upon).

What we are seeing is registration fraud. Meaning, if I was to fill out one of these forms ACORN would hand me and spell my name "Sean Mullins" (fuck that name, seriously), I was committing registration fraud. Thankfully, it doesn't even matter that I did that, because if I wanted Sean and myself to vote, I would have to come up with a piece of ID that has "Sean Mullins" on it (license, utility bills, etc.) I would say "oops, that was a typo" and correct the form and that is that.

It is painfully obvious that Republicans are against it because poor and minority people are being registered. Instead of trying to make sure that as many Americans as possible have a voice, they accuse them of a felonious crime and do everything they can to prevent them from reaching the polls.

My source of optimism is that a President Obama takes a top-to-bottom review of every single Bush Administration hire in their agencies (EPA, NASA, Dept. of Interior, Justice Dept., the whole lot) and ensure they were not hired to advance a political agenda. Also, the Supreme Court just delivered a decision on registrations that is encouraging. I hope it is just the last gasp of a dying ideology/political party.