Debate deliverance
Well, I’m happy to say the country has suffered through its final presidential debate this year, which means all those poor people chained to a desk and forced to twist dials up and down can finally return to their homes.
I think both candidates did well in the final debate. McCain was at his strongest when he flatly stated he wasn’t George Bush. I thought his anti-abortion content was strong, too. Obama’s best moments came when he strongly refuted McCain’s character attacks, and when he detailed his health care plan. Most non-partisan bloggers seem to think Obama ran away with it, and the aforementioned focus groups definitely favored Obama by 60 to 35 type margins. It was McCain’s best performance so far, but on balance Obama probably was a bit stronger, and with his lead in the polls all he really had to do was play prevent and hope McCain wouldn’t make it to the end zone.
There’s been talk of ACORN the evil vote-fraud monster as of late. If you haven’t heard, ACORN, a community organization who enjoys favored-child status with mainstream Democratic groups, pays people to get voter registrations. Sometimes, the people they pay make up names, like Mickey Mouse, because they’re getting paid either way and it’s hard to verify all the voters they register. This is nothing new to Oregon, where the law used to allow people to get paid for collecting signatures for ballot measure petitions. Then they couldn’t get paid, the courts said, then they could, then they couldn’t and I lost interest in the whole thing. The thing about fake registrations, though, is who does it really harm? The poor election workers who have to process extra registrations, maybe, but who else? If you register Mickey Mouse to vote, how do you actually plan to get him to vote? Are you going to pay someone to wear a Mickey costume and go down to county elections? Does anyone honestly believe that the few people turning in fraudulent registrations actually bother to go through with voting multiple times and risking federal or state jail time?
Real voter fraud, on the other hand, usually occurs when candidates actually pay people for voting one way or the other. Per Rick Hasen, law professor and election-law poobah, here’s an example of voter fraud from 1999, back before the Y2K bug destroyed us all.
Highlight: Incredibly, each of the two camps–McCranie and Mullis-actually set up tables inside the courthouse at opposite ends of the hall, where supporters on both sides openly bid against each other to buy absentee votes. At trial, a Dodge County magistrate described the rowdy courthouse atmosphere during the absentee voting period as “a successful flea market.” (R3-446). One of the vote buyers in the Mullis camp also testified that the open bidding for votes was “[l]ike an auction.” Vote buyers for both sides paid the voter $20 to $40 after the voter cast his or her absentee ballot. Sometimes, the cash payment occurred in the courthouse bathroom. More frequently, the voters received their payment while the “haulers” drove them home after they voted. McCranie’s haulers generally drove the absentee voters to the courthouse to see Bryant Williams (”Williams”) whose primary role was to physically mark the voters’ absentee ballots for McCranie and Jones, no matter what the voters’ preferences were. Williams was not a county employee but a volunteer campaign worker for McCranie. Williams’ wife, however, was McCranie’s clerk at the Dodge County Courthouse. Approximately 40 absentee voters also testified at trial that they were paid by one side or the other to vote for either Mullis and Jones or McCranie and Jones.
We’ve come a long way from 1999. Now, instead of making secret voting payments in bathrooms, we follow in the footsteps of the great Larry Craig and make secret advances toward undercover police officers.