In October 2004, I posted some about some allegations of voter fraud, under the title "Pretty Appalling, If True." An update cited a Florida Today story, which read (in part), "A field director for one of the many national partisan organizations trying to drum up votes in Florida admits to routine efforts to rig the outcome. They include submitting thousands of invalid voter registration cards, as well as failing to turn in boxes of cards filled out to register Republicans. 'There was a lot of fraud committed,' said Mac Stuart, former Miami-Dade field director for ACORN. Among his allegations — that ACORN "quality control" workers routinely kicked back Republican voter registrations while paying for Democratic ones. 'They said they had enough,' he said."

Well, it seems that the charges in the update were in fact not true. According to the St. Petersburg Times (Dec. 15, 2005),

Fourteen months after a campaign to increase Florida's minimum wage drew allegations of voter fraud, a federal judge in South Florida has ruled at least some of those accusations against grass roots political group ACORN were so baseless they amount to defamation.

U.S. District Judge James King has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Mac Stuart, a former ACORN employee, saying Stuart never provided evidence to support his claim that he was fired because he uncovered voter fraud. . . .

The judge upheld ACORN's counterclaim that Stuart's lack of evidence made his allegations libel and slander. The group has always claimed it fired Stuart for insubordination. . . .

An investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement also found no evidence of criminal activity at ACORN, department officials confirmed Wednesday. . . .

I'm sorry to have inadvertently passed along the erroneous accusations, but glad to be able to report this latest development.