ACORN Scandal Presents Golden Opportunity

The pendulum swings both ways, my friends. I can imagine John McCain saying that. Or how ’bout this? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. I do like it when all sides are held to the same standard. The recent voter registration scandal is one prime example of an area where this principle should be put into practice.

Like my hero and future president Barack Obama, I am against voter suppression and fraud by anyone, no matter whom they support, and I would like to believe in my heart that everyone believes that. I know that in this cruel, partisan world of politics, there are some who have a tendency to look the other way when it’s their own side that is bending the rules, but that just shouldn’t be. Let’s play fair and insist that everyone else do the same.

This is a golden opportunity to demand that the McCain-Palin campaign, whose spokespeople and media partners are decrying ACORN for voter registration fraud, trying desperately to link this activity to Barack Obama and to use this as just another distraction to step up publicly, and just as the Obama-Biden campaign has, to denounce voter fraud in any form, and there is a panoply of examples in various states to choose from. Frankly, areas of voter registration, from purging and potential vote suppression is so rampant, I will not list them here, but they are very well known and in the news.

With 22 days left in this presidential contest, attempts at eliminating voters from voter rolls, both before and after a vote is cast, should be weighing heavily on our minds. The right to cast a ballot in an election in this country is sacrosanct, and any attempt to tamper with that right should be scrutinized thoroughly and should be revealed and punished severely when discovered. All citizens, including our candidates, should publicly denounce this un-American acitivity for what it is and do it today.

Lastly, at the debate on Wednesday evening, Barack Obama should remind every voter that they must verify that their voter registration has not been tampered with and that if they haven’t received their voter forms in the mail and expect them, they should call their county clerk’s office to make certain that they are still registered. He should further advise all voters to drop off their forms, if that is available in their area, and that if they do mail ballots, to place ample postage on them. And finally, he should announce that unlike Al Gore and John Kerry before him, whose elections for president were tainted in many ways by voter suppression and by not having every vote counted, he will, once elected, work toward eliminating all issues of voter fraud and that in an Obama Administration, every vote, whether for him or any other candidate, will be counted fairly, accurately and unencumbered by scandal.