LIBERADIO(!)

Like many of you, I’ve been waiting for a big “October Surprise” – a newsworthy event so monumental that it would cause enough chaos to affect the outcome of this year’s election. You know, something like the trotting out of a ghostly visage of Saddam Hussein wailing that Senator Obama is really his kin – the bastard son of a “threeway of evil.” (Makeup the other two participants on your own time.)

I never expected that the actual October Surprise would take the unrecognizable form of something much more low key – the understated, insidious, and coordinated attack on ACORN and the subsequent cries of “voter fraud” it has enabled. It may not be dynamic enough to swing votes prior to the election, but it certainly will cast doubt on the legitimacy of the winner after the election.

After more than four years of activists and independent journalists trying – with little success – to get Democratic party leaders to take the very real issues of election fraud and voter suppression seriously enough to bring it out of the shadows, the issue – along with the righteous indignation and moral high ground that comes with trying to protect our precious right to vote – has been co-opted by Republican operatives who, in a matter of days, got the very false narrative of “voter fraud” on the lips of every television and radio newscaster and pundit.

Early voting has only just begun and already Fox news, Senator McCain, and conservative ideologues are reporting incidences that “prove” multiple and fake voter registrations – not to mention the intent of some to cast more than one ballot. This, despite no real evidence (or convictions) in recent years of this kind of fraud and a federal law (HAVA) that requires ID from anyone voting for the first time who hadn’t originally registered in person. In other words, false registrations do not equal stolen elections in any way, shape, or form.

Even worse, the cries of “voter fraud” have drowned out reports of real and potential problems at the polls. Whereby “voter fraud,” according to a comprehensive study by the Brennan Center for Justice, is “irrational and extremely rare” and “many vivid anecdotes of purported voter fraud have been proven false or do not demonstrate fraud,” election fraud and voter suppression – including large scale voter roll purging, insecure and easily manipulated electronic voting machines, voter intimidation, manufactured long lines (i.e. allocating too few voting machines for the expected turnout), the systematic suppression of low-income, young, and minority voters, and legislative influence (like Florida’s stringent “No Match, No Vote” law) – does exist. For instance, there is a law in Pennsylvania, a key state in this election, that mandates that voters can spend no more than 3 minutes casting their votes once they are in the voting booth. If they do take longer, they can be physically removed. You can’t put a time limit on democracy.

This election’s October Surprise sets the stage for Republicans to accuse Barack Obama, should he win on November 4, of stealing the election – a gut wrenching and ironic twist.