The Indianapolis Star has an article out today that CNN's Drew Griffin really needs to read.  It clearly reports what we've been pointing out for weeks (and what reporters like Griffin have been intent on ignoring) -- that ACORN was required by law to turn in all registrations it received from its canvassers in Lake County, IN and that it separated the forms it suspected as fraudulent:

ACORN said it took steps to ensure officials knew some of the registrations it turned in were potentially bad.

"We ID'd those applications as questionable," Charles D. Jackson, spokesman for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, said of the Lake County applications.

"We turned them in three separate stacks: ones we had been able to verify, ones that were incomplete and ones that were questionable or suspicious."

Jim Gavin, spokesman for Secretary of State Todd Rokita, Indiana's top election official, confirmed that groups that conduct registration drives in the state must turn in all applications they collect.

Failure to do so, Gavin said, is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and up to one year in prison.

Ruthann Hoagland, assistant registration administrator with the Lake County Board of Elections and Voter Registration, confirmed that about 2,500 applications ACORN submitted were divided into three groups, as Jackson described.

The Star also quotes an election law expert dismissing the Republicans "voter fraud" fearmongering:

Nathaniel Persily, a Columbia Law School professor, said registration fraud is very different from actual voter fraud, which occurs at the polls.

"The effect is not going to change the outcome of the election or allow imaginary people to vote," he said. [...]

While Rokita and others are looking into the Lake County situation, experts said they saw little chance of voter fraud.

In Indiana, local election officials must verify every application through a variety of sources -- including the BMV, state Department of Health, a federal Social Security database, and the Department of Correction -- before they are added to the voter rolls.

(H/T The Indiana Law Blog)