On FOX voter registration fraud most newsworthy of election rigging techniques
Reported by Chrish - August 15, 2008 -
FOX News is breaking out the quadrennial scare topic of "voter fraud," bundling isolated incidents and turning it into a coordinated election-theft meme. They do this without ever mentioning election fraud and voter suppression tactics perfected by Republicans like vote caging and voter roll purges that disenfranchise tens of thousands, mostly African-Americans, or manipulation of electronic touch screen tallies. Unlike FOX News, BradBlog follows election tampering year-round and is a treasure trove of articles and facts.
Last weekend Eric Shawn hosted a segment that purported to expose the allegedly widespread problem. Note that ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), an organization associated with organized labor, is mentioned throughout, effectively demonizing it. While some volunteers at a few chapters of ACORN have been found guilty of faking voter registrations, which is deplorable, they are isolated incidents within a large organization and have not had an impact on an election outcome. Carolyn Castore, ACORN’s state political director in Wisconsin, reportedly said "that ACORN knew the 2004 election had problems and the group had taken extensive steps to ensure its registration drive did not repeat those problems."
FOX even has a dedicated email address for viewers to send "suspected or proven" instances of voter fraud to help them make their case. No comparable address exists for voters who have been disenfranchised.
Almost as an afterthought, in the last seconds of the segment Shawn added that there was an investigation of "an alleged Republican party mailing" in Louisiana.
As Gretchen Carlson is so fond of saying, it's the image, the perception, the psychology of storylines that is so important, not actual facts that might interfere. FOX is setting the stage for complaints of Democratic voter fraud come November when FOX candidates lose, should traditional Republican election-rigging tactics fail, delegitimizing the Democratic winners from the get-go.
