ACORN Vote-Registration Fraud in WA: Are There 2004 Ramifications?

ACORN (The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) has been busted again (video is available at the link; HT Michelle Malkin):

(AP) King County prosecutors filed felony charges Thursday against seven people in what a top official described as the worst case of voter-registration fraud in state history, while the organization they worked for agreed to keep a better eye on its employees and pay $25,000 to defray costs of the investigation.

The seven submitted about 1,800 registration cards last fall on behalf of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, which had hired them at $8 an hour to sign people up to vote, according to charging documents filed in Superior Court.

The video buys into the whitewash that only low-level employees were involved. The national track record of ACORN would indicate otherwise.

Other than the AP article excerpted, there has been almost no national coverage of this story. A New York Times search on "Washington ACORN" shows nothing recent. The same keyword search at the Washington Post? Only the AP story, with no indication that it made the Post's print edition. This Google News search on the same keywords shows that the AP story received relatively little play, especially outside of Washington State.

Wait a minute ..... wasn't the Evergreen State the site of a hotly contested gubernatorial election with serious allegations of vote fraud in 2004?

Indeed it was, and ACORN was, "oddly enough," possibly involved. Brad Shannon of the Olympian, whose story is carried here in the Seattle Times, appears to be the only person even trying to connect some dots:

The BIAW (the Building Industry Association of Washington) has criticized the work of elections officials in King County, where most of the questioned voting took place in the 2004 gubernatorial race. Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire eventually edged out Republican Dino Rossi by 133 votes after two recounts and Rossi's court challenge, which detailed allegations of vote fraud and improper voting by felons.

..... BIAW also is in court to seek documents from Pierce County related to the county's elections office and ACORN registrations. Pierce elections officials and prosecutors did not return phone calls Friday.

McCabe said 300 registrations in the Pierce County case are from "the exact same address. It turns out to be a homeless shelter." Residents are allowed to stay at the shelter for 30 days, and only one person voted from that address in 2004, which makes it unlikely so many would have registered there, McCabe said.

So did the other 299 phantoms simply not vote, or did a number of the 300 potential "voters" have their cards changed to new addresses, vote, and not get caught? That would appear to be a pretty important question, and may only scratch the surface of what extra-legal acts could have transpired to give Gregoire her victory margin.

Apparently, the private BIAW, doing work no prosecutor or, with rare exception, any media outlet is interested in, is the only entity that cares about these things.

That contrasts quite sharply with Old Media treatment of the objectively less controversial (on the facts, not the Florida Supreme Court's abuse of its powers) 2000 presidential vote in Florida.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.