You would think from the last couple of weeks of ACORN-bashing in the right wing press that ACORN was some Illuminati-type organization bent on US domination. As per usual, I’m annoyed by this thing where the right wing spews it and the normal news covers it, thus lending it credence, without critically thinking about it.

Let’s talk about something that is real, because screaming about some stupid ACORN canvasser registering Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck is a red herring. ACORN is required by law to hand over all registrations because otherwise people could just “forget” them in their trunks again. They identify ones they think are suspect and let the process go on its merry way. Mickey Mouse isn’t a name that’s making it to the voter rolls.

From my interactions with ACORN (I live in a neighborhood in which they are active) I have the following impression: they’re overworked, kind of disorganized, and very concerned with making sure everyone has a voice. None of those are “evil empire” kinds of things.

What concerns me much more is voter suppression. This is a very real thing. Take instances from 2004:

In the U.S. presidential election of 2004, some voters got phone calls with false information intended to keep them from voting–saying that their voting place had been changed or that voting would take place on Wednesday as well as on Tuesday.

Other allegations surfaced in several states that the group called Voters Outreach of America had collected and submitted Republican voter registration forms while inappropriately disposing of Democratic registration forms.

Michigan Republican state legislator John Pappageorge was quoted as saying, “If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we’re going to have a tough time in this election.”

In 2006, four employees of the John Kerry campaign were convicted of slashing the tires of 25 vans rented by the state Republican Party which were to be used for driving Republican monitors to the polls. At the campaign workers’ sentencing, Judge Michael B. Brennan told the defendants, “Voter suppression has no place in our country. Your crime took away that right to vote for some citizens.”

Keeping people from voting is strategically far easier than registering fake people to vote. And yet which is the one getting airtime? Right.

But you know what? I don’t think it’ll work this time and I think that’s why the extreme folks of the right are leaving their computer keyboards and taking to the street to scream at voters in person. They’re scared and desperate and it really looks as though in a little over two short (lonnnggg) weeks we’re going to be celebrating the victory of Barack Obama and I will cry because I honestly did not think I would see a man of color or a woman gain the presidency in this country for a couple more decades – if ever. I’m in awe.