Fox News Channel correspondent Eric Shawn is on the hunt. Since April, he’s been on a cross-country mission to uncover issues related to voter fraud.
“Everyone else is focusing on the candidates and politics, I’m focusing on individuals and the individual’s right to vote,” Shawn told TVNewser today, as he was in the field following another lead.
As the election draws near, tips to a special email inbox [voterfraud@foxnews.com] have been pouring in. “In the last week, we’ve received 1,500 emails,” said Shawn, which represents about half of all the emails received by FNC since the inbox was set up a couple months ago. “I’m trying to read each and every one of them.” Much of the focus for the past few weeks has been on the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a group that helps register low-income Americans.
Shawn and FNC producer Becky Diamond have “traveled around the country,” looking for fraud; in Alabama, where there are allegations of absentee ballots being sold for 20 bucks or crack cocaine; or in Florida, where optical scan machines being tested in preparation for the 2008 election are already revealing thousands of lost ballots; or the hundreds of thousands of military votes not being counted from Arizona because they didn’t reach the States in time.
But what is Shawn’s forecast for Election Night ’08? Here’s a hint — not good.
“I predict it will be chaos across the country, because of all the new registrations,” he told TVNewser. “The bottom line is you want as many people to vote, to participate in the democratic process, but all you want is a fair and honest election. And that’s what we’re focusing on.”
Shawn continued: “I believe millions of Americans will show up to the polls and be told they are not on the rolls, not able to vote. There will be anger and confusion.”
And if that should happen, Shawn and his team will be there to cover it all. “We’ll be deployed out there to cover these issues,” he said. “It is not a political issue, not a matter of how far [the candidates] are apart. I want to defend every American’s right to vote, and the ability to vote correctly.”
With “dozens” of investigations — and more likely to come — why has there been so little reporting on the matter? “Often there are sacred cows and people don’t often look at sacred cows in the way I would,” said Shawn. “Prosecutors don’t take it seriously, so the journalistic establishment wouldn’t take it seriously.
“I’m just grateful for Fox News,” he said. “When we see a beat that no one else is doing, is being ignored by the mainstream media, we get to action, and look what happens. And we’re right.”