A prominent voters registration group admitted today that it had fired some of its workers for falsifying voter registrations, but said that it had helped authorities to identify the phony voter cards and that its efforts shouldn't be tainted by the fraudulent activities of a few workers.

And because of the group's focus on minority or low income voters, Republicans have long connected the group's voter registration drives as benefiting Democrats.

Kevin Whelan, a spokesman for the nationwide group, admitted that in some states some of its workers had "decided to pad their hours" and had sent in duplicative or faulty registrations but that the "vast, vast majority" of its workers did a "great job."

"There is no evidence that these false registrations led to false attempts to cast a ballot," Whelan said.

Whelan said that ACORN tries to independently verify applications and that by state law "and good judgment" it turns over all its applications to election workers, even those it has flagged as potentially problematic.

But ACORN and other voting registration groups fought back forcefully today.

"By raising the issue of voter fraud," said Miles Rapoport of the voting rights group Demos, "a serious disservice is being done to the election process itself."

Rapoport claims that Republicans are using the issue to "divert attention" from other voting issues such as untrained workers, absentee voting problems and machines that aren't working correctly.

The issue of voter fraud has long divided down party lines.

Obama told reporters in Ohio that he is not connected to ACORN... Read more...

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