Progress Illinois

They've knocked on doors, shaken hands on countless street corners, and set up scores of registration booths from the Rust Belt to the Florida Panhandle.  Yesterday, organizers with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and Project Vote announced that following an extensive voter registration drive, they've managed to bring 1.3 million low-income and mostly minority voters into the political process just in time for the presidential election.

Both ACORN and Project Vote targeted predominantly African Americans, Latinos, and young people -- all demographics that lean Democratic.  Furthermore, they posted their largest registration totals in a series of battleground states.  But, in the end, it'll be up to the candidates to set agendas that sway voters in the voting booth.

Here are some registration highlights (the organizations' goals appear in parentheses):

Colorado: 64,720 (60,000)

Florida: 147,134 (144,000)

Michigan: 208,601 (206,500)

Nevada: 86,368 (85,000)

New Mexico: 73,758 (69,000)

Ohio: 237,589 ( 220,000)

Pennsylvania: 149,035 (133,500)

Still, it's no surprise that the Republican National Committee (RNC) has been fighting some of the groups' registration efforts tooth and nail, as spokesman Danny Diaz indicated in a decidedly paranoid-sounding conference call with reporters last week.

For all the claims that voters are being victimized by ACORNS' "radical" agenda, the RNC has not taken any legal action against ACORN or Project Vote's registration methods, according to the groups attorney Sean Cairncross.  Instead, the RNC has decided to challenge voters in Democratic-leaning districts across the country. Why? Cairncross said the GOP is out to undermine a voter registration process that presents "a clear and present danger to the integrity of the election process."