Joel Connelly at Seattlepi.com writes about it.
Here is the Public Policy Polling site, which shows that 52 percent of Republican voters and 26 percent of the overall voting public think Barack Obama won the election because ACORN stole it from John McCain.
The Gallup archives show this poll from November 2001. The survey points out that election counting was perceived as less of a problem than it had been earlier in the year, but much of that was because the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001 had happened. However, it’s worth noting that the public’s perception of what happened in the 2000 election hadn’t changed much, even after the attacks. From the 2000 Gallup report:
Despite their changed view about the seriousness of the election controversy and the need for change in the electoral system, Americans have not changed their minds about what happened in the election and its aftermath. The poll shows that today 50% of Americans say Bush won the presidency fair and square, while 32% say he won it on a technicality, and 15% say he stole the election. These numbers are little changed from those found immediately after the Supreme Court decision in December that effectively halted the vote recount and made Bush the winner. At that time, 48% said Bush won fair and square, 32% said he won on a technicality, and 18% said he stole the election. These results are also remarkably similar to those obtained in a Gallup poll this past July.
A separate poll taken a little more than a month after the 2000 election shows that 31 percent of Democrats thought Bush stole the election.
What say ye? Does anyone here think ACORN stole the election for Obama?
Well, I am not in the majority on this one.
Do I think they stole the election? NO Do I believe there was most defiantly a certain amount of election corruption by ACORN? YES.
Do I believe that corruption was enough to “steal” the election? NO
Do I believe they influenced and manipulated a large portion of the population into voting for Obama? The same population that per the latest polling numbers are starting to regret being manipulated into that decision? ABSOLUTLY
Sorry forgot to hit the return after the first NO and I spelled a word wrong. I am glad it is Friday.
Colleen-
How is “influenced and manipulated” any different from any other election? the whole point of campaigning is to “influence and manipulate” the voters.
The Republicans do it with scare tactics based on outright falsehoods, the Democrats do it with scare tactics based on reality. I know which party I prefer to be in charge.
I agree with Colleen except for her last paragraph. I think what influenced people to vote for Obama was the economy, and the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction found and people got weary of our continued involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan after Bush declared “mission accomplished” and his grandstanding in a pilot suit, etc.
I had voted for Huckabee, but when he didn’t get the nomination and McCain got it, I got scared of McCain’s temper and his “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”, plus his rudeness to Obama in the debates (ignoring him, calling him “that one”).
When I saw that Hillary hadn’t gotten the nomination (thank God), I then thought of Obama as a viable candidate. I am not partisan, and I vote for who I think is the lesser of two evils, I guess. No president or nominee is perfect.
I will just have to wait and see who the next nominees are and how I feel about them. I hear that in some polls most people would like Huckabee to be the next nominee. Had he been the nominee the first time, the results might have been different, and we would now have President Huckabee instead.
If there are any regrets, it is because there isn’t any change in the economy and our involvement in the Middle East, but I made up my own mind without influence from anybody which is what most moderates do. A President Huckabee might not have been able to turn things around either.
Emilie
Port Orchard, WA
“…the Democrats do it with scare tactics based on reality.”
Like, “We do not have a budget deficit”?
Bob, I did not say it was different or that it was only a problem with a particular party or campaign. That does not make it any less of what it is. Spade is a spade.
ACORN found a successful way to tap into and easily influences the less informed, less intelligent, lazy minority and motivated them to vote in a variety of ways that did affect the outcome of the election. The continuing problem is that this same group of people is also easily swayed to be disapproving of what they originally agreed with and can eventually be convinced after a period of time that the exact opposite is what they really wanted in the first place.
ACORN is self destructing at a very fast rate. What or who will replace it and what their message is will continue to determine the outcome of elections.
“The Republicans do it with scare tactics based on outright falsehoods, the Democrats do it with scare tactics based on reality.”
Since you are basing this statement on a falsehood what does that really make you?
for clarfication before I get slammed for my use of minority, I meant “minority of voters”. I do hold a certain belief that the majority of citizens do inform themselves to a certain degree good or bad and do vote on what they know.
The official press release from the polling company states that:
“PPP conducted a national survey of 1,066 registered voters from November 13th to 15th.”
However, the press release does not indicate how the list of 1,066 registered voters was compiled or the aggregate geographic breakdown of those voters (i.e. by State, County, Congressional District, Legislative District, etc.) IMO, without this BASIC information it is impossible to make any conclusions whatsoever about the “accuracy” of this poll.
Furthermore, it seems to me that the sample size (1,066) is so small as to have no statistical significance whatsoever for a “National” survey.
Thanks Nate for some of the information on the Public Policy polling data . I have never heard of them and seeing Joel Connelly use them while then quoting Gallup polls made me wonder .
But I would say Acorn aggressively got out the vote for the left , but besides that the right really has little to complain about except for government funding. That seems to be apparently self serving to one political party.
But considering the way the mainstream media did not see the ACORN issue as being all that important , I was surprised that so many voters were influenced negatively by Acorn that the poll suggests.
The finding of their apparent conduct of supporting prostitution and such came out way after the elections , and even after the story was broke many in the mainstream media had no clue about the story .
But blaming Acorn for President Obama is sour grapes as far as I am concerned .
P.S Steve reading the PI.COM . A recent poll stated three people still do , and none of them are republicans . ;0)
Nate,
National polls are often conducted with sample sizes of around a thousand, so this isn’t unusual at all. Here’s a link to Pollingreport.com, which has most of the recent polls. You can see the sample sizes are comparable.
http://www.pollingreport.com/index.html
Mick,
I agree. Claiming that ACORN somehow “stole the election” is sillier than the Democrats’ claims that Bush stole the 2000 and 2004 elections.
Every election is stolen.