OpEdNews - Article: Neutralize the Lies!

How Can You Turn The Right Wing's Lies About ACORN and 'Voter Fraud' Back On Them? Hit 'Em Where They Live: When You Hear Lies About 'Voter Fraud,' Donate To Groups Fighting FOR Democracy!

Lately, right on schedule and as predicted, the GOP has been getting very aggressive in promoting their lies about "voter fraud." To hear Republicans tell it, there are hordes of illegal immigrants and unregistered voters who are getting ready to cast illegal ballots, and this will cause the election to be ruined and the United States to crumble. The wingers claim these evil un-American monsters are being led by the even more evil ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now).

Yeah, right.

The fact is that while a few people hired by ACORN have been charged with registration fraud, there is so little actual voter fraud that it's almost completely fictional. Just one example: A recent study of the 2002 and 2004 elections in Ohio (sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Ohio and the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing) found that in those two elections about nine million votes were cast. And after interviewing all 88 Ohio County Boards of Election, the study found the following number of attempts at fraudulent voting:

Four.

Yup, that's it. Four. Four attempts at fraudulent voting out of nine million ballots cast.

We won't go into too many details about the false charges the right wing is making against ACORN and about the exceptionally rare incidences of voter fraud, but you can read more details here and here. And you can read ACORN's view on the situation here.

But in the meantime, we're asking you to push back on these lies and false accusations by hitting the right wing noise machine where it lives. We're asking you to donate to progressive election reform organizations every time you hear these lies about "voter fraud." Result: the louder their noise, the greater our pushback.

Donate to ACORN. Or to VotersUnite.org, or VoterAction.org, or BlackBoxVoting.org, or the Palast Investigative Fund, or VelvetRevolution.us (the parent organization of this blog), or to our colleagues at The BRAD BLOG, or to the Election Defense Alliance, or to OpEd News. Or to another pro-democracy group.

Or what the hell, send a few bucks to each!

And you can push back in other ways. One of the most effective things you can do to battle these lies and smears is to write a letter to the editor of your newspaper. You can find all the information you need to debunk the lies at these two links.

Your donations and your letters will send the message of "Your lies won't help you!" to the right wingers who are desperately trying to suppress voters because they know they can't win the election on the issues.

And of course, this November you can really hit the wingers hard. Get out and VOTE!

Click here to find out how else you can work for election integrity.

Thanks for all you do.