OK, here's what should be the nail in the coffin for conservative claims that ACORN is poised to steal the New Jersey governor's race through rampant voter fraud.

Brian Kettenring, an ACORN spokesman, tells TPMmuckraker that the much-maligned group has conducted absolutely no political or voter registration activity in the state during the 2009 cycle. And Kettenring added that ACORN had done very little such work during the 2008 cycle.

In a column published yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, John Fund sounded the alarm about the threat from ACORN -- but a close look reveals that even here he was forced to rely on guilt by association to make the case.

"Groups associated with Acorn in neighboring Pennsylvania and New York appear to have moved into the state," Fund wrote.

Further down, he explained:

After repeated election-related scandals, Acorn has become toxic for many candidates who once relied on the group. But Acorn's longtime allies, the Service Employee International Union and New York's Working Families Party, have both moved into New Jersey. Peter Colavito, Acorn's former political director in New York and a board member of the Working Families Party, is now the political director of SEIU Local 32BJ, which is heavily involved in New Jersey's election.

In other words, a major labor union and a political party, both of whom are ACORN "allies," are involved in the New Jersey race. But as for ACORN itself, not so much.

Fund also wrote:

Elsewhere, an investigation is being conducted into a report that people wearing Acorn T-shirts entered an East Orange hospital near Newark carrying blank absentee ballots and left with completed ballots.

This "report" was in fact an email sent by the husband of a hospital worker, claiming that his wife had seen the ACORN workers in the hospital. And the hospital has denied it.

Not that the right is letting any of this get in the way of the vote fraud storyline. Conservative activist Patrick Ruffini tweets: "The fix may be in in NJ." If it is -- and there's not a a single piece of credible evidence for that -- it looks like it won't be thanks to ACORN.