The Clark County Democratic Party led quickly down the same path as the state party and the Barack Obama campaign, in the guise of a news release praising Democratic law-enforcers who raided the offices of the activist group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) this week. Here’s the statement:

Democratic Party Applauds Leadership of Democrats Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller in Voter Registration Investigation

Las Vegas, Nevada—The Clark County Democratic Party applauds the leadership of Secretary of State Ross Miller and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto.  It is clear to all residents of Clark County and the State of Nevada that Miller and Cortez Masto are committed to fair and honest voting practices.  It is under their leadership that the State of Nevada is conducting a thorough investigation of possible fraudulent voter registration.

“As a veteran, and the father of a son who has had three tours of duty in Iraq, I know that there is nothing more fundamental to democracy than our right to vote, and each vote must be counted fairly and accurately,” said Clark County Democratic Chair John A. Hunt.  “Ross Miller and Catherine Cortez Masto are shining examples of why we must elect Democrats to public office in Nevada.”

The Clark County Democratic Party looks forward to the continued leadership of both Ross Miller and Catherine Cortez Masto.  “The Clark County Democratic Party is working hard to ensure that all registered voters have their vote counted and any coordinated effort to suppress the vote is aggressively prosecuted.  We are lucky, as Nevadans to have two such honest, ethical and competent people making sure the process is fair.” said Chairman Hunt.

The Clark County Democratic Party supports every measure to ensure each vote is valid, accurate, and counted.  Nevada Democrats clearly have shown they do not condone any behavior that undermines the legitimacy of the voting process.

It is vital that Nevada continues to elect Democrats and restore America’s faith in our elections.

Republicans from sea to shining sea have been ACORN bashing since the raid, which was conducted to get more information about field organizers who allegedly submitted fradulent voter registration affidavits to the group in order to make daily quotas and get paid.

A couple things:

First, Miller and Cortez Masto should be praised, since they were doing their jobs enforcing the law. And nobody condones voter registration fraud.

But, second, a raid of the organization was not really necessary, given the fact that ACORN brought suspicious registrations to the attention of county and state officials, and complied with requests for information and a subpoena for employee records. We’re pretty sure the group would have given up whatever information the state wanted without protest, and without the need for search warrants. But whatever, we’re not going to judge.

Third, Republicans — and now the Clark County Democratic Party chairman — seem to be under the impression that fake voters were being signed up to vote and could possibly have gone to the polls and swung the election. This is false. There was no way that any of these fake people could have voted, inasmuch as the state has safeguards to prevent that from happening. This is, was and will continue to be an effort by some people to gain money from ACORN but failing to do the honest work required to do it, not an attempt at vote fraud. So the chairman and his family can rest easy.

Now, does ACORN bear responsibility, given the organization hired people including ex-felons to gather voter registration information? Yes. It does. But should ACORN be made a pariah after doing great work in much-neglected parts of the community for years, including registering thousands of legitimate voters? No, it shouldn’t.

You’d think Democrats of all people would recognize that…