Grab and Keel

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now

– UPDATE –

My son in law informs me via Factcheck that ACORN volunteers are more likely paid $8 per hour.

Acorn tries to gather 20 signatures per person per day. Therefore, in the case of Harris County this would mean 10,800 rejected signatures were collected @ 20 per day for a sum of 540 days. Assume 8 hours per person at $8 per hour for a sum of $64 per day. $64 X 540 days equals $34,560 spent in Harris County for rejected signatures!

There are 254 counties in Texas.

Whether these monetary figures are close or not, they are worth closer review. The point is still that a 31% rejection figure is a very sloppy number. If voter registration is the only mission of ACORN, they are failing.

Read this article from Capitol Annex (CA) HERE.

Assume for the moment that ACORN has done nothing wrong in Harris County. Assume likewise, that Harris County also did nothing wrong. Let’s look as the figures reported in the above article from CA in another way.

CA reports that an estimated 35,000 voters were registered in Harris County by ACORN. Of that number, 3800, or almost 11% were already registered. In addition, of the 14,000 applications rejected, about half were rejected and undisputed, or 20% of the total new registrants. This is a sum of 31% of new ACORN registrants who are rejected for undisputed legitimate reasons.

If we were to take this percentage and compare it elsewhere we would be stunned, or amused, I don’t know which.

For example, 35% of the entire population of California is Hispanic.

Approximately 28% of the entire universe may be comprised of dark matter, gas and stars.

A person 31 years of age has lived 40% of the average USAn life.

30% is figure that the New Agenda has established as a goal for the number of women in public office.

In short it’s a very large number of undisputed rejected registrations in just one county, and appears to represent a highly inefficient methodology on the part of ACORN. What organization in the world would consider this level of success acceptable? Canvassers are reported to receive $8 per signature. Now I don’t know if this is true in Harris County, but if so that would mean 10,800 registrations occurring at $8 each possibly cost ACORN $86,400. FOR JUST HARRIS COUNTY!!! Even if only one quarter of the registrations were paid for on a county-by-county basis, this adds up to a very large amount of money flowing through ACORN that did not result in a registration.

In that light, there MUST be other trade offs for the money suppliers of ACORN. No organization survives for long with that kind of a record.

One thing it does for sure, is bollocks up the public organizations that must sort through this chaos. Therefore, the resolution must be to do away with this kind of conflated political maneuvering and adopt better national non-partisan strategies. Cost reduction comes with efficiency. Transparency and review of voter registration drives is in order.

I Own My Vote, PUMA, The Denver Group, Just Say No Deal