For Illinoisans, voteforjudges.org has nonpartisan info on all 70 judges who will be on the ballot.

A sign of the trouble McCain is in: a Republican consultant tested some negative ads with a focus group. They believed them, but are voting for Obama anyway.

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The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. "Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I'm sick of paying for health insurance at work and that's why I'm supporting Barack."

[Edit] Corrected crazy substituting of Obama's name for McCain's.

That is the weird up(?) side. One of my students believed some of the crazy stuff but also expressed being fed up with Republicans.

Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy

She must be talking about the Annenberg Foundation. Bunch of f'ing terrorists.

Bunch of f'ing terrorists.

Yup. Anneberg is a personal friend of John McCain and a major donor. But its interesting that this woman in the focus group believes this stuff, and supports Obama anyway.

I have to admit to being a bit ignorant about ACORN's voter registration in a post a few days ago. They are compelled by law to submit all voter registrations (at least in some states) even if they suspect or know they are fraudulent. I still wonder why they are getting the fraudulent registrations, but I understand now that they can't screen them. Which makes total sense.

One criticism I've heard about ACORN is they pay their volunteers by how many registrations they bring in. Which a cynical person might say might lead to some fraudulent registrations. But still, if Micky Mouse is on a registration form, it doesn't mean Micky Mouse is going to show up and try to vote....

But still, if Micky Mouse is on a registration form, it doesn't mean Micky Mouse is going to show up and try to vote....

I do feel like that is the key point. Gawker did a nice piece about the whole thing -- I love that Alex Pareene came up from Wonkette to Gawker! It's much more political now.

One criticism I've heard about ACORN is they pay their volunteers by how many registrations they bring in.

Well, they pay them by the hour -- but who knows what would motivate people to fill out the forms funny. Even so, the Mickey Mouse point holds. Every voter registration drive in history has had some bad forms in it; there's no evidence that any of those people have ever been officially enrolled or succeeded in voting.

They pay them by the hour, but their job is to get voter registrations. So if they walk in with too few registrations too many days in a row they get fired, even if there is no explicit quota. And voter registration is damn hard work. So you will always get a percent of people who take the job and then decide it is easier to pull names out of the phone book than to stand on a Supermarket corner, or go door to door collecting registrations.

Acorn has evolved over the years; their controls were much tighter this year than in the past. Out of over a million new registrations, about 30,000 have turned out be problems 3%. (As someone who has done volunteer voter registation that is not unreasonable - one in 30 is someone who thinks it funny to fill out a form with smartass answers.) And apparently 90% of those were caught by acorn and turned in flagged. So that leaves .3% Acorn failed to catch.