"Voter Fraud" and Voter Suppression Watch

1. Zachary Roth has a nice article up on TPM that summarizes the FBI/DOJ investigation into ACORN. If you're new to this story, there are two things Roth doesn't mention (probably sick of typing tehm), but are worth keeping in mind before you click the link.

First, there is a world of difference between a bogus registration form submitted to ACORN and the submitter actually being able to follow up on that to cast a fraudulent vote. Second, no matter how ludicrous the form might seem to ACORN, they are required to submit every form to the pertinent government registrar. (Otherwise, there's no way to be sure a get-out-the-vote organization wouldn't be discarding valid forms.)

2. This just in from CREDO: A report on the "exact match" tactic that the GOP is trying to foist on newly registered voters in Ohio. If this term is new to you, here's the gist: the GOP would like to require that information on a voter registration form exactly match other places where the voter's name may appear in government databases. We're talking down to the level of middle initials appearing or not, even down to whether or not a period appears after "Jr." Ohio is not the only state where this is going on; e.g., this has been happening in Florida, Washington, Wisconsin, and Maryland and Pennsylvania, as well. And bear in mind that there's no reason to believe existing databases are without their own errors.

3. John Evo sent me a link to a handy tool on MoJo. It's an interactive map that lets you see where documented efforts of voter suppression have occurred and in some cases, are still occurring. Tip: This wasn't immediately obvious to me, but when you click a specific state, it will appear as though the same page reloads, again, just showing the map of the whole US. You have to scroll down a bit to see the text details for the state you clicked on. Worth a look, this minor quibble aside.