Justin Rood/ABC: no worries about voting fraud! (Dem-linked experts say; ACORN)

Justin Rood of ABC News offers "McCain Acorn Fears Overblown/Charges of Voter Fraud Are Out of Proportion to Reality, They Say" (link). As it turns out, the "they" refers to three sources: a Barack Obama contributor, a former director of the leftwing, illegal immigration-supporting People for the American Way, and FactCheck. No others sources are allowed to weigh in. Not only that, but Rood doesn't mention the background of the PFAW director and tries to give the impression that he's a Republican:

McCain's voter fraud worries – about Acorn or anyone else – are unsupported by the facts, said experts on election fraud, who recall similar concerns being raised in several previous elections, despite a near-total absence of cases... "There's no evidence that any of these invalid registrations lead to any invalid votes," said David Becker, project director of the "Make Voting Work" initiative for the Pew Charitable Trusts... Becker should know: he was a lawyer for the Bush administration until 2005, in the Justice Department's voting rights section, which was part of the administration's aggressive anti-vote-fraud effort...

Becker [1] is now Project Director for Voting Initiatives at The Pew Charitable Trusts, and his links to his former organization aren't known. However, PFAW is coming to the aid of ACORN, including taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times in support of the group [2].

Later in the article, Rood uses FactCheck as another source trying to claim that worries about voting fraud are overblown.

More at [3], including the fact that the third quote source, Lorraine Minnite, gave $250 to the Obama campaign.

[1] linkedin.com/pub/3/7A8/62B
[2] site.pfaw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_2008_10_right_wing_smear
[3] newsbusters.org/blogs/terry-trippany/2008/10/17/
abc-news-used-obama-contributor-expert-defense-acorn

Politics · Fri, 10/17/2008 - 18:53 · · Importance: 1