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Republicans intensify ACORN focus

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: October 14, 2008 - What was a Missouri story last week mushroomed into a national one this week as former Sen. John C. Danforth and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin hammered Sen. Barack Obama's connection to ACORN, the social advocacy group that has been accused of voter registration fraud in Kansas City.

Danforth and former Sen. Warren Rudman - chairs of Sen. John McCain's Honest and Open Elections Committee - held a press conference at the National Press Club warning of election day problems and calling upon Obama's committee to work to resolve them. (See C-Span )

"We believe that this is a potential nightmare," Danforth said at an event at the National Press Club. Danforth likened the situation to the contested presidential election of 2000. (See New York Times story )

Meanwhile, Gov. Palin told Rush Limbaugh that Obama had a responsibility to rein in ACORN, given his past connections to the group. (See Politico story ) Obama once represented the group in a lawsuit, taking the same side as the U.S. Justice Department. (See New York Times )

ACORN - Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - responded at its own press conference that allegations of voter registration fraud were overblown. It said it opposed voter fraud but that the numbers of questionable registrants were small compared to the 1.3 million people it had helped register. Liberal bloggers also pointed out that McCain himself had once headlined for an ACORN event. (See Huffington Post )

The Obama campaign, which said that the Danforth-Rudman committee was partisan, pointed to a number of battleground states where it said voters were being removed from the voting rolls improperly. (See exchange of campaign correspondence at Real Clear Politics )

The dispute follows last week's charge from Gov. Matt Blunt that Sen. Claire McCaskill was not taking the voter fraud issue in Kansas City seriously enough. (For background on those charges and the Missouri case see last week's Lawscoop blog .)

Ben Smith has an interesting post on fraud vs. suppression in Politico .

William H. Freivogel is the director of the school of journalism at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.