The Employment Policies Institute been leading the charge to keep an eye on ACORN for quite some time, and this blog has discussed the issue several times over. Now the Seattle Times editorial page has weighed in, and there’s yet another voice raising the alarm over ACORN’s pattern of fraud.

From the Times:

The ACORN case — what Secretary of State Sam Reed called “the largest case of voter-registration fraud in the state’s history” — has resulted in a settlement that looks at first like a slap on the hand. It is more than that when the details are examined. ACORN has done things similar in other states, and it needs to be cleaned up or shut down.

Indeed, see ACORN’s similar fraud on this map. The point, says the Times, is that ACORN needs to be watched:

The King County Canvassing Board has invalidated 1,762 ACORN registrations, and another 55 have been tagged in Pierce County. Felony charges have been filed against seven persons, some of whom have criminal records and two of whom are in jail for other things.

Some of them, says King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, “are people you wouldn’t want to hire to mow your lawn.”

To avoid prosecution, ACORN has agreed to pay $25,000. It has agreed to train paid canvassers to state specifications and sign every registration they turn in, to have a paid supervisor responsible for their conduct, and to notify county prosecutors when they’re coming.

All this puts ACORN under a public microscope — which, as its conduct shows, is where it belongs.