Turns out, the ACORN falls rather far from the tree.

Allegations about the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now have simmered on right-wing talk radio and conservative Web sites for months over the course of this election and during elections past. The nut of the complaint, if you will, is that ACORN pays low-wage workers to collect voter registration forms. Some of the names they collect are dubious or even outright bogus, including fictional enterprises like Mickey Mouse or the Knicks’ playoff hopes. Suspect forms are flagged, but all are submitted to voter registrars.

Recently, the accusation that ACORN is perpetrating voter fraud on a massive scale surfaced in the mainstream when GOP presidential candidate said during the last presidential debate that ACORN was “destroying the fabric of democracy.” Although the story was born in Washington, ACORN has no roots here.

That’s a surprise. Despite the fact that the District is home to dozens of Democratic activists who spend their free nights and weekends canvassing in Virginia, ACORN is not operating voter-registration drives in D.C., Virginia, or Maryland. (Maryland’s ACORN office is working to protect homeowners against foreclosure, the article reports.)

WTVR in Richmond reported on cases of attempted voter fraud in Virginia:

Officials believe people hired by advocacy groups to register minority voters in exchange for cash and other incentives are the ones submitting the forms and in metro Rchmond [sic], some of the falsified documents are coming from a group called The Community Voters Project which is .a [sic] group involved with three Hampton Roads workers arrested for voter fraud.

In each of the counties cited, registrars are counting dozens of voter-registration forms with false information.

Merely dozens. Given that voter registration in battleground-state Virginia has shattered all records, even hundreds of forms would represent just a tiny fraction of newly registered voters (some 436,000). And of those false voters who do successfully register — Tony Romo of Clarendon, Jerry Jones of Fairfax — it’s not at all apparent that they will successfully cast votes. In the case of Virginia, at least, ACORN hysteria seems to be mostly nuts.

Photo by KCivey