Voting questions: Registration is up, but fraud is a worry

The big picture is encouraging. Voter registration is up in Missouri at least 1.5 percent from 2006, and officials are still figuring out how many more voters signed up by Wednesday’s deadline.

More than 4 million Missourians are registered to vote. Pundits and partisans may claim that higher registration tends to favor Democrats or tends to favor the party out of power. Whatever. The main thing is people taking the time to register and taking the time to weigh the candidates and causes and make their voices heard on Nov. 4. That’s good for community and country.

The bad news is that in Missouri – and other states, apparently – some fraudulent voter registrations were turned in. In Jackson County alone, it looks as if hundreds of submitted registrations are either duplicates or have addresses or other information that doesn’t check out.

A lot of fingers are pointing – again – at ACORN, that is, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The group takes on a variety of causes, including registering low-income people to vote. The problem is that just this year eight ACORN workers in the St. Louis area pleaded guilty to federal charges for this sort of thing in 2006.

Charlene Davis, co-director of the Jackson County Board of Election Commissioners, says the county’s office has about 1,000 questionable registration cards that lead straight to ACORN – the group’s protestations notwithstanding. ACORN says it hasn’t been signing up voters here for a couple of months.

“They’re stamped ACORN,” Davis says. “They say ACORN right on them. We’re not guessing.”

It’ll get sorted out, in due time. It might involve federal officials, again. And, headed into a busy election season, someone will have wasted a good deal of the Election Board’s time.