‘ ‘ ‘ Over the past few weeks, the McCain campaign has increased its use of attack ads linking… ‘ ‘ ‘ Over the past few weeks, the McCain campaign has increased its use of attack ads linking Sen. Barack Obama to the recent ACORN voter registration scandal. ‘ ‘ ‘ The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, ‘is the nation’s largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families,’ according to its Web site. In addition to the work it does in aiding low-income families to secure homes and improving poor communities, ACORN has also done work registering voters. ‘ ‘ ‘ Following his work as a community organizer in Chicago, Obama led a leadership seminar for ACORN that helped to train future community organizers. Additionally, according to a New York Times article, ‘Obama did represent ACORN in a lawsuit in 1995 ‘hellip; ACORN was on the same side as the Justice Department.’ Despite Obama’s documented involvement with the group during the ’90s, Sen. John McCain’s recent support of the organization has been incredibly downplayed. ‘ ‘ ‘ In February 2006, McCain was the keynote speaker at an ACORN-sponsored Immigration Rally at Miami Dade College. Given his recent support of ACORN, one cannot help but question the validity of McCain’s attacks on Obama when McCain has also been a vocal supporter of the organization. ‘ ‘ ‘ At the core of the Republican Party’s attacks against Obama and his connections with ACORN is the largely misguided notion that Obama and the Democrats are fraudulently registering voters. It is, simply, a modified version of the ‘vote early, vote often’ slogan that followed the Democrats during former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s administration, except that the current Republican attacks are built not upon ties to Al Capone and the Mafia, but on Obama’s legal work that was supported by the Justice Department, the League of Woman Voters and other organizations. ‘ ‘ ‘ McCain’s attempt to smear Obama by his association with ACORN is merely another example of McCain making desperate attempts to stymie Obama’s rapidly growing support and to turn around his rapidly dwindling campaign. ‘ ‘ ‘ I find it hypocritical for the Republican Party to accuse Obama of ‘stealing’ the presidential campaign when it has been a driving force behind the disenfranchisement of countless Americans through its strong support of the Help America Vote Act. ‘ ‘ ‘ Following the 2000 presidential election, Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress focused on ensuring that another fiasco similar to the hanging-chad scandal in Florida would not occur again. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 was intended to eliminate the threat of another punch-card scandal by replacing it with that of touch-screen voting booths. In addition to the electronic voting machines ‘mdash; which have already garnered much controversy for repeated glitches ‘mdash; HAVA implemented a unique system of voting registration that essentially moved voter registration databases from the local level to the state level in an effort to centralize voter registration. However, in many states the new, centralized databases have compromised the integrity of the voting system by removing registered voters from the voter rolls based on inconsistencies between documents. ‘ ‘ ‘ In an interview with Air America Radio, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a voting rights lawyer and the nephew of Sen. Ted Kennedy, stated, ‘[HAVA] uses a computer system to compare your registration application to all other government records of you in the state ‘hellip; if there is any information on your voter registration that is different than the information on another government record that they find, they remove you from the voting rolls.’ The problem can perhaps be seen most clearly in immigrant communities, which tend to vote Democratic. The names of the people in these communities are often misspelled on government records and are thus purged from the voter rolls. ‘ ‘ ‘ Rather than correcting the flaws that contributed to the 2000 presidential election disaster, HAVA effectively institutionalized ‘a series of impediments that make it very difficult for Democrats to register, for Democrats to vote and then for Democrats to have their vote counted,’ according to Kennedy. ‘ ‘ ‘ In numerous states, including some key battlegrounds, voters are wrongly being purged from the voter rolls and denied the opportunity to vote in arguably the most significant election in American history. The Republican Party tries to maintain that Obama and ACORN, an organization that its candidate happens to maintain strong connections with as well, are ‘stealing’ votes in their favor. In reality, however, the Republican-endorsed HAVA is disenfranchising and discrediting thousands of potential voters and Democrats. ‘ ‘ ‘ Instead of focusing on a candidate’s questionable ties to a voting-fraud scandal, perhaps America’s attention should turn to a more consequential and pertinent issue that could very well compromise the 2008 presidential election, future elections and voting rights for all Americans. E-mail Shane at [email protected]