Voter Registration Group ACORN Long a Target of GOP Operatives

thoughtone

Rising Star
Registered
source: OpEdNews

by Jason Leopold

For the past several weeks, Republican operatives have been stepping up their efforts in critical swing states claiming voter registration groups have been engaged in a massive voter fraud effort in an attempt to influence the outcome of November’s presidential election.

The allegations took on a new sense of urgency Tuesday when law enforcement authorities in Nevada raided the offices of The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), an organization that advocates voter registration and participation among low-income people and minorities.

ACORN members denied any wrongdoing and claimed the probe is politically motivated by Republicans to suppress voter turnout for Barack Obama.

"Today's raid by the Secretary of State's Office is a stunt that serves no useful purpose other than discredit our work registering Nevadans and distracting us from the important work ahead of getting every eligible voter to the polls," said Bertha Lewis, ACORN's interim chief organizer.

No concrete evidence of systemic voter fraud in the United States has ever surfaced. Many election integrity experts believe claims of voter fraud are a ploy by Republicans to suppress minorities and poor people from voting.

Historically, those groups tend to vote for Democratic candidates. Raising red flags about the integrity of the ballots, experts believe, is an attempt by GOP operatives to swing elections to their candidates as well as an attempt to use the fear of criminal prosecution to discourage individuals from voting in future races.

In March, the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration held a hearing and heard testimony from election integrity experts who said voter fraud is a “myth” and voter identification laws actually disenfranchise legitimate voters.

Indeed, in a column published in the Washington Post last year, Justin Levitt, an attorney and expert on voting issues who teaches at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, and Jeff Milyo, a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia department of economics, said "the notion of widespread voter fraud... is itself a fraud. Evidence of actual fraud by individual voters is painfully skimpy."

ACORN has long been a target of Republican Party operatives dating as far back as the 2004 presidential election. But the accusations of malfeasance have never been supported by evidence.

Last weekend, investigative reporter Brad Friedman and former Justice Department official and GOP operative Hans Von Spakovsky engaged in a heated debate over voter fraud in a segment on the Tavis Smiley radio show. [Full disclosure: Friedman is a contributor to The Public Record].

Von Spakovsky, Friedman wrote on his blog Wednesday, "was...instrumental in bringing phony "voter fraud" charges, such as those against ACORN workers in Missouri, filed just days before the razor-thin 2006 Senate election, in violation of the DoJ's own written rules against bringing such indictments just prior to elections where they are likely to affect the race."

ACORN and U.S. Attorney Firings

In fact, two of the nine U.S. Attorneys who were fired in 2006 were targeted because they refused to bring criminal charges against individuals affiliated with ACORN, according to interviews and a Justice Department report issued last week on the circumstances behind the federal prosecutor firings. The firing of another U.S. Attorney was due, in large part, to his refusal to convene a grand jury and secure an indictment against individuals for voter fraud.

But it’s the firing of former New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias and the accusations of voter fraud leveled against ACORN by GOP operatives in that state that appeared to be the most egregious case of partisan politics, according to the DOJ report.

Even President George W. Bush said he was concerned about widespread voter fraud, despite the fact that evidence of such crimes was virtually non-existent. Bush, according to the DOJ report, “spoke with Attorney General Gonzales in October 2006 about their concerns over voter fraud in three cities, one of which was Albuquerque, New Mexico.”

n the months leading up to the 2004 presidential election, Bernalillo County in New Mexico had been the target of a massive grassroots effort by ACORN to register voters.

The effort apparently paid off as registration rolls in the county increased by about 65,000 newly registered voters.

But Sheriff Darren White, who was New Mexico chairman of the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign, intended to challenge the integrity of some of the names on the voter registration rolls. Mary Herrera, the Bernalillo County clerk, told White that there were about 3,000 or so forms that were either incomplete or incorrectly filled out.

White seized upon the registration forms as evidence that ACORN submitted fraudulent registration forms and held a press conference along with other Republican officials in the county to call attention to the matter.

In testimony before the Senate committee earlier this year, former New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias said he formed an election fraud task force in September 2004 to probe claims of widespread voter fraud.

In an interview, Iglesias said he fully expected to uncover instances of voter fraud based on numerous stories that appeared in New Mexico media that said minors received voter registration forms and that "a large number" of voter registration forms turned up during the course of a drug raid.

"Due to the high volume of suspected criminal activity, I believed there to be a strong likelihood of uncovering prosecutable cases," Iglesias said. "I also reviewed the hard copy file from the last voter fraud case my office had prosecuted which dated back to 1992.

“My intention was to file prosecutions in order to send a message that voter fraud or election fraud would not be tolerated in the District of New Mexico."

"My announcement of a dedicated task force notwithstanding, the firebrands were still not placated," Iglesias, wrote. "I got an angry e-mail from Mickey Barnett, an attorney, who, like me, had worked on the Bush-Cheney campaign and who berated me for ‘appointing a task force to investigate voter fraud instead of bringing charges against suspects.’"

In his testimony before the Senate committee, Iglesias said the task force received about 108 complaints of alleged voter fraud through a hotline over the course of about eight weeks.

"Most of the complaints made to the hotline were clearly not prosecutable -- citizens would complain of their yard signs being removed from their property and de minimis matters like that," Iglesias testified before the Senate committee.

"Only one case of the over 100 referrals had potential. ACORN had employed a woman to register voters. The evidence showed she registered voters who did not have the legal right to vote. The law, 42 USC 1973 had the maximum penalty of 5 years imprisonment and a $5,000 fine.

“After personally reviewing the FBI investigative report and speaking to the agent, the prosecutor I had assigned, Mr. [Rumaldo] Armijo, and conferring with [a Justice Department official] I was of the opinion that the case was not provable. I, therefore, did not authorize a prosecution.

“I have subsequently learned that the State of New Mexico did not file any criminal cases as a result of the" election fraud task force.

Iglesias said that Republican officials in his state were far less interested in election reforms and more intent on suppressing votes.

He recalled that the Justice Department issued a directive to every U.S. Attorney in the country to find and prosecute cases of voter fraud in their states during the height of hotly contested elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006, even though evidence of such abuses was extremely thin or non-existent.

In his recently published book, In Justice: Inside the Scandal that Rocked the Bush Administration, Iglesias said in late summer 2002 he received an email from the Department of Justice suggesting "in no uncertain terms" that U.S. attorneys should immediately begin working with local and state election officials "to offer whatever assistance we could in investigating and prosecuting voter fraud cases."

"The e-mail imperatives came again in 2004 and 2006, by which time I had learned that far from being standard operating procedure for the Justice Department, the emphasis on voter irregularities was unique to the Bush administration," Iglesias said. crooked elections.”

The DOJ report said "Iglesias said he wanted to get the message out to his fellow Republicans that he would prosecute “provable” voter fraud cases but would not bring a case unless it could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In a further attempt to defuse the situation, Iglesias called state Republican Party Chairman Weh, and the two met briefly for coffee near Weh’s home on May 6, 2005. Iglesias said he tried to explain to Weh that he wanted to prosecute provable voter fraud cases but could not go forward without sufficient evidence."

As the 2006 elections approached, "Patrick Rogers, the former general counsel to the New Mexico state Republican Party and a party activist, continued to complain about voter fraud issues in New Mexico," according to the report. "In a March 2006 e-mail forwarded to Donsanto in the [DOJ's] Public Integrity Section, Rogers complained about voter fraud in New Mexico and added, “I have calls in, to the
USA and his main assistant, but they were not much help during the ACORN fraudulent registration debacle last election.”

In June 2006, Rogers sent Iglesias's Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Rumaldo Armijo an email:

The voter fraud wars continue. Any indictment of the Acorn woman would be appreciated. . . . The ACLU/Wortheim [sic] democrats will turn to the camera and suggest fraud is not an issue, because the USA would have done something by now. Carpe Diem!

"Carpe Diem" was a reference to the Chairman of the New Mexico Democratic Party at the time, John Wertheim.

Missouri Prosecutor’s Firing

In Missouri, U.S. Attorney Todd Graves was another federal prosecutor who fell into disfavor with the Bush administration because of alleged inaction on voter fraud issues.

Graves would not file criminal charges of voter fraud against four employees of ACORN, according to documents later released by the Justice Department in connection with the fired-prosecutors probe.

Graves also resisted pressure from Justice Department official Bradley Scholzman to file a civil suit against Robin Carnahan, Missouri's Democratic Secretary of State, on charges that Carnahan failed to take action on cases of voter fraud, Graves testified last year before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Graves was forced to resign in March 2006 and was replaced by Schlozman, whom as head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division's voting-rights section had clashed with Graves.

Schlozman filed the civil suit against Carnahan, which was later dismissed by a federal court judge who ruled, "The United States has not shown that any Missouri resident was denied his or her right to vote as a result of deficiencies alleged by the United States. Nor has the United States shown that any voter fraud has occurred."

Schlozman filed federal criminal charges of voter fraud against members of ACORN only days before the November 2006 mid-term elections. The case was later dismissed and Schlozman came under criticism for breaking with longstanding Justice Department policy against bringing voter fraud charges close to an election.

Schlozman testified before a Senate committee last year that he received approval to file the voter fraud charges from a Justice Department official who was instrumental in drafting the guidelines urging that U.S. Attorneys avoid filing charges claiming voter fraud at the height of an election.

McKay’s Firing

John McKay, the former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, was fired in large part, according to the DOJ report, because Republicans were angry that he did not convene a federal grand jury to pursue allegations of voter fraud related to the 2004 governor's election in the state, in which Democrat Christine Gregoire defeated Republican Dino Rossi by a margin of 129 votes.

In an interview, McKay said there were some Republicans in his district with close ties to the White House who demanded he launch an investigation into the election and bring charges against individuals--Democrats--for vote-rigging. He believes his refusal to haul "innocent people before a grand jury" was the reason he was not selected for a federal judgeship by local Republicans in Washington state in 2006.

McKay said that, at the time, he felt he was not being treated fairly, and requested a meeting with then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers to discuss the issue, as well as his application for US district judge in his home state.

"I asked for a meeting with Harriet Miers, whom I had known since work I had been involved in with the American Bar Association, and she immediately agreed to see me in August of 2006," McKay said. He added that when he met with Miers and her deputy William Kelley at the White House, the first thing they asked him was, "Why would Republicans in the state of Washington be angry with you?"

That was "a clear reference to the 2004 governor's election," McKay said in characterizing Miers and her deputy's comments. "Some believed I should convene a federal grand jury and bring innocent people before the grand jury."

"All of my actions as United States attorney had been coordinated with the Department of Justice," McKay told me. He said he explained that to Miers and Kelley, and informed them that there was no evidence of voter fraud to support launching a federal inquiry into the election.

McKay said he believes the meeting he had with Miers and Kelley directly led to his name being placed on a list of US attorneys selected for dismissal in December 2006.

ACORN Offices Raided

Bob Walsh, the spokesman for Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, a Democrat, said ACORN is accused of submitting multiple voter registrations with false and duplicate names, accusations similar to ones leveled in New Mexico that turned out to be baseless.

The raid comes two months after state and federal authorities formed a task force to pursue election-fraud allegations in Nevada, a crucial swing state in November’s presidential election.
Walsh said there have been ongoing complaints that ACORN has submitted voter registration forms rife with erroneous information. But it's unknown how many of bogus forms were submitted.
Friedman, the investigative reporter and an expert on election integrity issues, said Tuesday's raid of ACORN's Nevada offices was orchestrated by the GOP to scare people away from the polls.

"With prospects looking bleak for the Republicans this November, pulling out the old ACORN lie --- in hopes of scaring people away from the polls, causing chaos in November by challenging voters when they show up to vote, and putting in place baseless grounds to contest close results later on (when the GOP become "sore losers") --- is just about all they have left at this point," Friedman wrote on his blog.

"Doubtless you've heard the smears by now: that ACORN is committing "voter fraud", on behalf of Obama, in hotly contested swing states," Friedman wrote. "The media has been all too happy to pass that garbage on, without bothering to note that, in fact, the organization attempts to authenticate every registration form their workers submit and by law they must turn in every form to election officials --- even if they find a registration to be fraudulent when they call the phone number submitted on the form, or if the forms are otherwise suspect or incomplete."
 
I've registered over 100 people in Texas as a member of an Obama group. We hit up Wal Mart, bus stations, the post office, etc and didn't see any McCain groups out trying to get people registered. I think they are fearful of the quantities of new people that will vote for Obama. Lets keep pushing on.
 
source: msnbc

Parties wage war over voter fraud, intimidation
Democrats see vote suppression, McCain alleges fraud by Obama ally

By Tom Curry
National affairs writer
MSNBC
updated 26 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The fiercest shouting match of this campaign season isn’t necessarily “vote for Obama!” versus “vote for McCain!”

In some states, it is “voter fraud!” versus “voter intimidation!”

Republicans allege Democrats and their allies are trying to subvert the voter registration system, and perhaps the election itself, with an avalanche of inaccurate or fraudulent new voter registrations.

But Democrats charge Republicans are trying to deter would-be voters by discouraging registrations and by requiring voters to identify themselves, in some cases with state-issued photo identification such as a driver’s license.

In one sense, this is simply the intense political combat one would expect to see three weeks before an election, with each side using an issue to fire up its loyal supporters.

But some election officials are struggling with substantial problems as they try to avoid a fiasco on Election Day, Nov. 4.

Republicans have made a group called ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, the chief villain in the home stretch of the campaign.

Their allegation: that ACORN has been flooding election officials in states from Nevada to Connecticut with thousands of erroneous and fraudulent voter registration forms.

In Jackson County, Missouri, (which includes Kansas City) election officials said this week that fraudulent registration forms had been handed in by ACORN canvassers.

Nevada raid on ACORN
In Las Vegas, investigators from the office of Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, a Democrat, served a search warrant Tuesday on the ACORN office, as part of an investigation into allegations of voter registration fraud. Miller’s agents seized computer hard drives and boxes of documents.

But ACORN did acknowledge that some errors were made.

“While the vast majority of our voter registration canvassers do a great job, there have been several times over the past ten months that our Las Vegas Quality Control program has identified a canvasser who appears to have knowingly submitted a fake or duplicate application in order to pad his or her hours,” the group said in a statement.

It complained that “It was surprising that law enforcement officials appeared suddenly at our Las Vegas offices yesterday, because ACORN and its attorneys have already been proactive in providing information about problematic cards and any employee suspected of misconduct.”

President Bush won Nevada in 2004, but recent polls show Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain statistically tied in the state with his Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama.

Obama ties to ACORN
Obama has long had ties to ACORN. In 1995, he was one of the attorneys who represented the group in a suit against the state of Illinois for not implementing the federal "Motor Voter" law which makes it easier for people to register as voters. And the ACORN political action committee has endorsed Obama.

Campaigning in Mosinee, Wisc., on Thursday, McCain responded to shouts of “ACORN!” in the crowd by saying, “There are serious allegations of voter fraud in the battleground states across America…. You’ve seen these are serious allegations, my friends, and they must be investigated, and they must be investigated immediately, and they must be stopped before November the 4th so Americans will not be deprived of a fair process in this election.”

The co-chairman of the McCain advisory team in charge of monitoring alleged voter fraud, former Missouri Sen. John Danforth, hinted this week at potential post-Nov. 4 litigation if Obama wins due to suspect voters who had been registered by ACORN. “The contest could go on for a very long time,” he told reporters.

Danforth also said it would be “a nightmare in America” and “a total horror story” if Obama either wins or loses by a small margin “and the losing side believes it has been cheated.”

Offering a professional election official's view of last-minute “dumps” of new registration applications by groups such as ACORN was Doug Lewis, the executive director of the nonpartisan National Association of Election Officials, who testified before the House Judiciary Committee last month.

'It just screws up the system'
“This unfettered, unbounded, unregulated use of third-party registrations, where they sit on those registrations right until the end and try to turn them all in at the very last minute — it just screws up the system,” Lewis told the committee. “It disenfranchises voters. It's one of those things that just is frustrating to us as elections officials.”

Lewis added that in his years as an election official he has seen both Democrats and Republicans “dumping in” new voter registration cards at the last minute before a state’s voter registration deadline. “The problem is that these groups all think that they're going to surprise the other campaign with how many people they've registered.”

This week the controversy reached as far as the usually non-political offices of the Social Security Administration.

The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) which represents most of the chief election officials in the states, urged Social Security Administration Commissioner Michael Astrue to postpone this weekend’s scheduled shutdown of his agency’s database, which most states use to verify new would-be voters’ names and identities.

State officials use the Social Security database when they cannot verify voters’ identity with drivers’ licenses or other state-issued identification cards.

The database shutdown is an annual event, done for maintenance.

In its letter to Astrue, NASS said that most states have voter registration deadlines “that fall a week before, the week of, or the week after the scheduled Computer Center shutdown. Holding all of these verifications until the system comes back online on October 13, 2008 could result in a tremendous surge of data.”

For his part, Astrue accused his critics of partisan motives: “I regret that people unfamiliar with the facts of this situation have sought to create a partisan issue where there is none.”
 
It sounds good what they are doing but there is some crooked shit going on with them. I was reading how over half the new registration ACORN submitted were thrown out because they had the same obvious handwriting signature on them. Another ACORN stronghold had more people registered to vote than was actually of voting age and how when was name was verified by address it was actually a resteraunt. Its like giving bullets to the enemy. Why can't the democrats be a little more subtle. People complain how Bush stole 2 elections(probably did) but if that is so how come there have never been charges? No paper trail. Haven't seen the democrats stoop this low since 1960 when Kennedy's stole that election.
 
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CNN Reporter Exposes How ACORN Steals Votes For Democrats

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Gettin' it straight about ACORN and this bullshit charge

PLEASE, Get Your Facts Straight On ACORN
by TocqueDeville
Fri Oct 10, 2008 at 05:32:13 AM PDT
from DailyKos - a must read!

It's bad enough having to endure the lies and disinformation emanating from the corporate news, right wing media, and the McCain campaign. But there's no excuse for people on Daily Kos to fall for it. Here are the facts.

From ACORN's memo:

Fact: ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control system in the voter engagement field, but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic.

ACORN can't not turn in bogus applications. They are legal documents, no matter who brings them in, and they are required by law to turn them in no matter what.

Fact: ACORN flags incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in, but these warnings are often ignored by election officials. Often these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards.

* TocqueDeville's diary :: ::
*

Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card, so there is NO incentive for them to falsify cards. ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the relatively rare cases where our internal quality controls have identified this happening we have fired the workers involved and turned them in to election officials and law-enforcement.

So who has an incentive to falsify cards? Ratfucking Republicans who wish to use this to suppress votes.

AND THIS ONE IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT:

Fact: Voter fraud by individuals is extremely rare, and incredibly difficult. There has never been a single proven case of anyone, anywhere, casting an illegal vote as a result of a phony voter registration. Even if someone wanted to influence the election this way, it would not work.

ACORN has registered over 1.3 million voters. Over 60% are people of color. This is a horrifying development for Republicans and the McCain campaign.

And since no one has ever been proven to successfully cast an illegal vote as a result of phony voter registration, the rabid hysteria by the right wing over this issue can only mean one thing - cover for their own crimes to steal this election.

We all know the drill - cry registration fraud while systematically purging millions of voters from the voter rolls, throwing out votes in African American areas, running campaigns to suppress voter turnout through various deceptive and illegal means.

And the raid on the ACORN offices is undoubtedly a continuation of one of the US Attorney Gate scams, bogus prosecutions for the bogus voter fraud claim.(Voter fraud: not to be confused with election fraud)

I'm no Poblano. But my win-o-meter has never been wrong in a presidential election - until 2000 and 2004. I have said for months now, if Obama loses this election, it will be because the Republicans stole it.

And now we are seeing how. Challenge all these new people who have joined the political process, and use that challenge to cover up their suppression of the vote - just like 2004.

What are the facts again? No one has ever been proven to successfully cast an illegal vote as a result of phony voter registration. Ever.

And ACORN is doing a damn good job. When some individual abuses the system, ACORN has to by law turn in the bogus registrations.

And the final fact: Republicans hate democracy.

-VG
 
Re: Gettin' it straight about ACORN and this bullshit charge

Interesting indeed. I just what I believe was one of ACORN's national leaders (a Black female whose name I didn't get) on Larry King's show. The woman said that the organization turns in what may be bogus applications ALONG WITH THE NAME OF THE PERSON WORKING WITH ACORN WHO OBTAINED THE APPLICATIONS.

THE ALL CAPS wasn't meant to yell or flame, just wanted to make sure those inclined not to read, doesn't miss it.

This ACORN thing might not be near what its being made out to be. As Vegas pointed out, there are others with motive to manufacture, procure, submit bogus applications, blame ACORN, and see how this plays out in the media.

QueEx
 
Re: Gettin' it straight about ACORN and this bullshit charge

Interesting indeed. I just what I believe was one of ACORN's national leaders (a Black female whose name I didn't get) on Larry King's show. The woman said that the organization turns in what may be bogus applications ALONG WITH THE NAME OF THE PERSON WORKING WITH ACORN WHO OBTAINED THE APPLICATIONS.

THE ALL CAPS wasn't meant to yell or flame, just wanted to make sure those inclined not to read, doesn't miss it.

This ACORN thing might not be near what its being made out to be. As Vegas pointed out, there are others with motive to manufacture, procure, submit bogus applications, blame ACORN, and see how this plays out in the media.

QueEx

I got your point without explaination QueEx. The point is everybody is getting ginned up over yet another simpleton news story from major media. These kinds of stories basically write themselves and all they need is a big name to affix to the story and idiots can understand.

But I said in another thread, it doesn't matter about this registration noise, you can only vote once. Doesn't damn matter how many times I register it doesn't allow me to vote more than once.

This is yet another republican distraction.


-VG
 
Re: Gettin' it straight about ACORN and this bullshit charge

But I said in another thread, it doesn't matter about this registration noise, you can only vote once. Doesn't damn matter how many times I register it doesn't allow me to vote more than once.

-VG
. . . and, the bogus applicant can't vote at all without supporting and acceptable I.D., which in most if not all states now, must be a picture I.D.

QueEx
 
NEWSFLASH: DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE!!!

ACORN is a great organization that I learned about by way of Black Entreprise magazine. They fight for poor and working class individuals. They got my wife and I our mortgage through Bank Of America a few years back(30 yr, fixed, no PMI) . :yes: We are living in a pretty cozy NY suburb thanks to ACORN.:yes:

Its only natural that republicans are against an organization that fights for the little guy and equal housing for all. I will continue to donate to ACORN and the Obama campaign. :yes::yes:

Peace.
 
NEWSFLASH: DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE!!!

ACORN is a great organization that I learned about by way of Black Entreprise magazine. They fight for poor and working class individuals. They got my wife and I our mortgage through Bank Of America a few years back(30 yr, fixed, no PMI) . :yes: We are living in a pretty cozy NY suburb thanks to ACORN.:yes:

Its only natural that republicans are against an organization that fights for the little guy and equal housing for all. I will continue to donate to ACORN and the Obama campaign. :yes::yes:

Peace.

But then please respond to the allegations made in the CNN news report.
 
But then please respond to the allegations made in the CNN news report.

source: ACORN

Bogus "Voter Fraud Charges" Aim to Camouflage Voter Suppression
October 10, 2008

ACORN has just completed the largest, most successful nonpartisan voter registration drive in U.S. history. We helped 1.3 million low-income, minority and young voters across the country register to vote.

Unfortunately, just as in 2006, that success in bringing people into the democratic process, have been greeted with unfounded accusations to disparage our work and help maintain the status quo of an unbalanced electorate.

After a similar spate of charges against ACORN in 2006, we learned that then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had fired Republican U.S. Attorneys because they refused to prosecute ACORN and other voter assistance groups on trumped up fraud charges. This was the heart of the U.S. Attorney-gate scandal that led Karl Rove, Gonzales and other top Department of Justice officials to resign. Because the press didn’t catch on until long after the election, it was part of a successful strategy to create an unfounded specter of voter fraud and to suppress voting.

Key Facts:

1. In order to help 1.3 million people register to vote, we hired more than 13,000 registration assistance workers. As with any business or agency that operates at this scale, there are always some people who want to get paid without really doing the job, or who aim to defraud their employer. Any large department store will have some workers who shoplift.

2. Any large voter registration operation will have a small percentage of workers who turn in bogus registration forms, Their goal clearly is not to cast a fraudulent vote. It is simply to defraud their employer, ACORN, by getting a paycheck without earning it. ACORN is the victim of this fraud – not the perpetrator.

3. In nearly every case that has been reported , it was ACORN that discovered the bad forms, and called them to the attention of election authorities, putting the forms in a package that identified them in writing as suspicious, encouraging election officials to investigate, and offering to help with prosecutions. We are required by law to turn in all forms, but instead of just turning them in and figuring that it is the responsibility of the board of elections to figure out which are valid, we spend millions of dollars verifying that forms are valid, and then separate out those that are suspicious.

4. This has nothing to do with “voter fraud” – nothing at all to do with anyone trying to cast an extra vote. There has never been a single reported instance in which bogus registration forms have led to anyone voting improperly. To do that, they would have to show up at the polls, prove their identity as all first-time registrants must, and risk jail. The people who turned in these forms did so not because they wanted an extra vote, but because they didn’t care enough to make sure eligible people got to vote at all.

5. When a department store calls the police to report a shoplifting employee, no one says the department store is guilty of consumer fraud. But for some reason, when ACORN turns voter registration workers over to the authorities for filling out bogus forms, it gets accused of “voter fraud.” This is a classic case of blaming the victim; indeed, these charges are outrageous, libelous, and often politically motivated.

6. Similar attacks were launched against ACORN and other voter registration organizations in 2004 and 2006. The bogus charges were at the heart of the U.S. Attorney-gate scandal that led to the resignations of Karl Rove, Attorney General Ablerto Gonzales and other top Justice Department Officials. It turned out that it was the charges that were fraudulent, and that they were part of a systematic partisan agenda of voter suppression. Republican U.S. Attorneys David Iglesias (NM), Todd Graves (MO), and John McKay (WA) all were fired primarily because they refused to prosecute similar bogus charges of “voter fraud.” Another U.S. Attorney, Bradley Schlozman, who did politicize prosecutions against former ACORN canvassers, was forced to acknowledge under cross examination by the Senate Judiciary Committee that ACORN was the victim of fraud by its employees and ACORN had caught the employees and had identified them to law enforcement.

7. The goals of the people orchestrating these attacks are to distract ACORN from helping people vote and to justify massive voter suppression. That’s the real voter fraud; the noise about a small fraction of the forms ACORN has turned in is meant to get the press and public take their eyes off the real threat, while those hurling the charges are stealing people’s right to vote in broad daylight. They have already tried to prevent Ohio from registering voters at its early voting sites. In Michigan, they planned to use foreclosure notices to challenge thousands of voters. And if this year is like past years, they are preparing to use this so-called voter fraud to justify massive challenges to voters in minority precincts on Election Day.

The Details:

Fact: ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control system in the voter engagement field but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic.

Fact: ACORN flags in writing incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in,. Unfortunately, some of these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards. In many cases, we can actually prove that these are the same cards we called to their attention.

Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card . ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the cases where our internal quality controls have identified this happening we have fired the workers involved and turned them in to election officials and law-enforcement.

Fact: No criminal charges related to voter registration have ever been brought against ACORN or partner organizations. Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained through our quality control and verification processes — evidence which in most cases WE called to the attention of authorities

Fact: Most election officials have recognized ACORN’s good work and praised our quality control systems. Even in the cities where election officials have complained about ACORN, the applications in question represent less than 1% of the thousands and thousands of registrations ACORN has collected.

Fact: Our accusers not only fail to provide any evidence, they fail to suggest a motive: there is virtually no chance anyone would be able to vote fraudulently, so there is no reason to deliberately submit phony registrations. ACORN is committed to ensuring that the greatest possible numbers of people are registered

ACORN will not be intimidated, we will not be provoked, and in this important moment in history we will not allow anyone to distract us from these vital efforts to empower our constituencies and our communities to speak for themselves.

________________________________________________​

source: ACORN

ACORN Statement Regarding Las Vegas Voter Registration
October 08, 2008

Over the past year, ACORN has worked hard to help over 80,000 people in Clark County register to vote.


Hundreds of canvassers and volunteers have worked for months talking to citizens from Nevada’s most disenfranchised communities and encouraging them to exercise their right to participate in our democracy. Their work has been tireless—they deserve a great deal of credit for spending days in the hot sun at public places from parks to community centers to shopping centers helping citizens complete voter registration applications. Most of the 80,000 registrations they have collected and turned in to election officials come from young people, low income people and minorities—the very people whose voices are too often left out of our electorate.


As part of our nonpartisan voter registration program, ACORN staff reviews every single application submitted by our canvassers. Special, dedicated staff makes up to three phone calls attempting to reach the voter listed on EVERY SINGLE CARD before they are turned in to verify the information. Our callers verify the information on the cards before turning them in to election officials to make sure that as many new voters as possible get on the rolls and to make sure that all of our voter registration workers are doing the high quality work they are trained to do.


While the vast majority of our voter registration canvassers do a great job, there have been several times over the past ten months that our Las Vegas Quality Control program has identified a canvasser who appears to have knowingly submitted a fake or duplicate application in order to pad his or her hours.


Anytime ACORN quality control staff has identified a suspicious application, we have separated that application out and flagged it for election officials. We turn any suspicious applications to election officials separately, along with a cover sheet identifying the nature of the problem and an offer to provide election officials with the information they would need to pursue an investigation or prosecution of the individual. (Note that civic organizations are required by law to turn over ANY signed voter registration applications even when they are known to have problems). We immediately dismiss any employees we suspect of submitting fraudulent registrations.


It was surprising that law enforcement officials appeared suddenly at our Las Vegas offices Tuesday, because ACORN and its attorneys have already been proactive in providing information about problematic cards and any employee suspected of misconduct. In July, ACORN staff and our attorney set up a meeting with Clark County elections officials and a representative of the Secretary of State’s office to urge them to take action on information ACORN had provided. Since then, and as recently as September 29^th , ACORN has provided officials with copies and—in some cases—second copies of many of the personnel records and the "problem card packages" and cover sheets with which we originally identified the problem cards.


ACORN is a community organization dedicated to making everyone’s voice count in the vital public policy debates in our country. Helping citizens become active voters is a crucial part of our work to help build a fairer and more inclusive democracy. We will continue with this important work by encouraging every eligible voter to the polls this November.
 
So, considering the fact that a couple of ACORN members or employees have been prosecuted, do you think they may have been plants intended to tarnish the reputation of ACORN, or, do you think it may have been a couple of bad apples, or that these are only the ones who have been caught.

Now, voter fraud is no myth, considering the fact that my mom "voted" while she was essentially brain dead a few years ago in NYC. Also, Al Sharpton did an investigation many years ago proving that hundreds of dead people voted, and hundreds more wre registered to vote with the address of the main post office, and Madison Square Garden.

ACORN does do a pretty good job of answering inquiries via press.
 
So, considering the fact that a couple of ACORN members or employees have been prosecuted, do you think they may have been plants intended to tarnish the reputation of ACORN, or, do you think it may have been a couple of bad apples, or that these are only the ones who have been caught.

Now, voter fraud is no myth, considering the fact that my mom "voted" while she was essentially brain dead a few years ago in NYC. Also, Al Sharpton did an investigation many years ago proving that hundreds of dead people voted, and hundreds more wre registered to vote with the address of the main post office, and Madison Square Garden.

ACORN does do a pretty good job of answering inquiries via press.

Again read. Anyone showing up to vote fraudulently will be arrested. That is voter fraud! An ACORN representative was on Faux Snooze Sunday morning answering the unsubstituted charges by one of the GOP operatives known popularly as news hosts on that network IN PERSON one by one. She said, "you can repeat a lie over and over, but it is still a lie". Need anyone say more?


BTW, remeber this?

source: CBS

(CBS) By CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer David Paul Kuhn

Officials in Oregon have launched a criminal investigation after receiving numerous complaints that a Republican-affiliated group was destroying registration forms filed by Democratic voters statewide, Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury told CBSNews.com.

Meanwhile, CBS affiliate KLAS-TV is reporting accusations of similar malfeasance in Nevada.

Both state's allegations are linked to a Phoenix political consulting firm called Sproul & Associates run by Nathan Sproul, former head of the Arizona Republican Party. Sproul & Associates has received nearly $500,000 from the Republican National Committee this election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Calls from CBSNews.com to Sproul were not returned.

Late Thursday afternoon, two Democratic senators, Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft asking the Justice Department to "launch an immediate investigation into the activities of Mr. Sproul and his firm."

According to KLAS-TV, a former employee claimed hundreds, if not thousands, of Democratic registration forms were destroyed by a Sproul & Associates group called Voters Outreach of America.

The former employee first told local Nevada reporters that he had personally witnessed his boss shredding eight to ten voter registration forms, according to Steve George, a spokesman for the Nevada Secretary of State.

KLAS-TV quotes the chair of the Nevada Republican Committee, Earlene Forsythe, as saying, "The Republican National Party would never intentionally hire any staff people to come into the state to intentionally do voter fraud."

While Nevada is considering an investigation, Oregon's is well underway. Bradbury expects to have more than 200,000 new registered voters in Oregon by Election Day, when all the forms are tallied and verified. He said that they are now paying particular attention to issues of improper registration.

"We’ve had three [voter registration] complaints filed and we forwarded them to the attorney general who’s doing the criminal investigation," Bradbury, a Democrat, said in an interview. "The complaints specifically name Sproul."

In Nevada and Oregon, Sproul allegedly canvassed voters for which candidate they intend to support. If voters were leaning Republican, the group is said to have assisted in their registration. If they leaned Democratic, the group allegedly ignored them or later destroyed the form.

It is illegal to destroy voting registration material.

"I’ve never seen this before. The allegations that are being made just totally offend me, not only because they are illegal," Bradbury said. "Regardless of whether it is a Democratic, Republican or Independent form, there is no better way to disenfranchise a voter than to say you are registered and then throw away a voter registration form."

Both Oregon and Nevada are considered battleground states in the presidential election. Though polls show Oregon likely to go to Democrat John Kerry, Nevada remains a dead heat between Kerry and President Bush.

Concerns over Sproul’s practices were initially raised in early September when a Medford, Oregon, county librarian, Meghan O’Flaherty, received a fax from Sproul requesting to hold a voter registration drive at the local library on behalf of a nonpartisan group called America Votes. As a precaution, O’Flaherty did her own research on Sproul.

"I was just being a good reference librarian and checking the facts. We want to be sure someone who claims to be nonpartisan is nonpartisan," O’Flaherty said. "I didn’t want anything going on here in the library that would call into question our neutrality."

The fax from Sproul was also received by three other Oregon libraries. CBSNews.com obtained a copy of the fax, as well.

In part, the fax reads: "Our firm has been contracted to help coordinate a national nonpartisan voter registration drive, America Votes!, in several states across the nation." The one-page fax also claims, "We will equally register all those who wish to register to vote."

However, Cecile Richards, the president of America Votes, said in a letter to Sproul that he "had never even heard of Sproul & Associates," and asked that "he refrain from using the name 'America Votes' in any of your activities from this point forward."

Part of the problem, said Bradbury, the Oregon secretary of state, is the "bounty system" where people are "paid by the signature for circulating petitions and that led to significant fraud."

"I have not seen a bounty system for voter registration before," Bradbury continued. "It’s not illegal but I’ve never seen that before."

In Nevada, the allegations of voter registration malfeasance have irked local election officials. The Nevada Secretary of State’s office has contacted the Department of Justice in Washington. An investigation is not yet underway.

"The allegations are that there was a group that was doing voter outreach in Las Vegas – Voters Outreach of America – allegedly made by one of its former workers that the group would destroy Democratic voter registration forms," said George, the spokesman for the Nevada Secretary of State’s office.

In Las Vegas, the Clark County registrar’s office has in the last month alone received more than 100,000 new registrations. Though it has only five electoral votes, the possibility that Nevada could go for either Bush or Kerry has brought the state to the forefront of the presidential race.

"If the allegations are true," George said "it could" involve hundreds if not thousands of voter registration forms. "We are looking at what state and federal laws may have been broken."
 
<sigh>, Why do I think you would actually be able to answer a direct question. Never mind, time for you to go on ignore.
 
It's simply explained as someone trying to fill quotas or someone uneducated about the registration, voting process. How many fake registrants will show up to the polls and try to vote??????????

What does it have to do with Obama's campaign contributing $800,000, towards Acorn? Nothing.

2469003207_df066cdf9e_o.gif


When it's all over, the culprits, investigated and will be prosecuted.

The Republikkklans are grasping for straws, it will be over soon ya'll!!



Too black too strong...​
 
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It's simply explained as someone trying to fill quotas or someone uneducated about the registration, voting process. How many fake registrants will show up to the polls and try to vote??????????

What does it have to do with Obama's campaign contributing $800,000, towards Acorn? Nothing.

2469003207_df066cdf9e_o.gif


When it's all over, the culprits, investigated and will be prosecuted.

The Republikkklans are grasping for straws, it will be over soon ya'll!!



Too black too strong...​

I think you're right about ACORN.
 
<sigh>, Why do I think you would actually be able to answer a direct question. Never mind, time for you to go on ignore.

A few bad apples and the process in which they hire those that are doing the job. Sorry, I thought you were intelligent enough to deduce the answer from my statement. My fault.
 
<IFRAME SRC="http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/acorn_accusations.html" WIDTH=780 HEIGHT=1500>
<A HREF="http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/acorn_accusations.html">link</A>

</IFRAME>
 
<font size="5"><center>
Californian who registered voters
charged with fraud</font size>
<font size="4">

Owner of a company hired by the
California Republican Party to register voters</center></font size>


image4532111g.jpg

Mark Anthony Jacoby was arrested on
voter fraud charges. (KCBS)


Mon Oct 20, 2008

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The owner of a company hired by the California Republican Party to register voters was arrested over the weekend on charges of voter registration fraud and perjury, officials said on Monday.

Mark Jacoby is accused of fraudulently registering himself to vote at a Los Angeles address where he no longer resides -- his boyhood home -- to meet a state law requiring all signature gatherers to register or be eligible to vote in California.

He did this twice, in 2006 and 2007, according to a statement issued by the California secretary of state, Debra Bowen. A spokeswoman for Bowen said investigators found the home at the address where he registered was no longer owned by Jacoby's family.

Authorities also are investigating complaints that Jacoby's company, Young Political Majors, or YPM, improperly registered voters as Republicans, said Ed Miller, a deputy district attorney for Los Angeles County.

The Los Angeles Times has reported that dozens of voters claimed they had been duped by YPM employees into switching parties and registering as Republicans when they were asked to sign a petition seeking tougher penalties against child molesters.

"We're confident that the charges will be dropped and his name will be cleared," said Jacoby's lawyer, Dan Goldfine.

He said Jacoby, who is in his 20s, travels frequently but always returns to California, where his mother keeps a permanent home that Jacoby treats as his own residence.

The California Republican Party, which pays YPM a fee of $7 to $12 for each registration it secures, issued a statement calling the charges against Jacoby "politically motivated." Bowen, the state's chief elections officer, is a Democrat.

On October 3, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office charged Jacoby with two counts of voter registration fraud and two counts of perjury, and issued a warrant for his arrest.

He was taken into custody late Saturday, but his lawyer said he was released on bail on Sunday.

Under California law, anyone convicted of registering to vote who is not entitled to do so faces a penalty of up to three years in prison, and it is perjury to provide false information on a voter registration card.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE49K0A120081021
 
The facts state who is actually committing fraud.

source: CNN.com

Nevada investigates voter registration
Probe also under way in Oregon on fraud allegations


Thursday, October 14, 2004 Posted: 1919 GMT (0319 HKT)

(CNN) -- Nevada election officials have launched an investigation into allegations that a Republican-led voter registration drive improperly disposed of forms it collected from potential Democratic voters.

Secretary of State Dean Heller said Wednesday that his office was reviewing the allegations, first raised Tuesday in a report by CNN affiliate KLAS-TV in Las Vegas.

"We are researching state and federal law to determine what violations may have occurred," Heller said in a statement. "If, in fact, the allegations are true and federal law has been broken, all efforts will be made to prosecute the individuals and/or the organization responsible."

The probe centers around a private voter registration firm, Voter Outreach of America, which collected registrations from voters in Nevada, a pivotal presidential battleground state. The company was set up by Sproul & Associates Inc., a Republican political consulting firm based in Phoenix, Arizona.

Under Nevada law, private canvassing efforts -- even those run by partisan groups -- must turn in all voter registration forms they collect, regardless of the party affiliation of those registering.

In the KLAS report, a former employee of Voter Outreach, Eric Russell, alleged that he saw a supervisor destroy forms collected from Democratic voters.

KLAS quoted Russell as saying that "we caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant, and he ripped them up right in front of us." CNN could not reach Russell for comment.

Heller said that if true, such actions "would be an incredible injustice to people who believe they have registered, only to find out later that their form was tossed away."

But Nathan Sproul, head of Sproul & Associates, disputed the allegations, saying that his company has a "zero tolerance" policy for such conduct and describing Russell as a "disgruntled former employee" who was fired a week ago.

Sproul provided sworn statements from two supervisors who said they turned in all of the collected forms and that none were "discarded, destroyed, tampered with."

However, Sproul, whose firm received nearly $500,000 this election cycle from the Republican Party, said that "it is safe to say we were trying to register Republicans."

In a statement, the Republican National Committee said, "Anyone who engages in fraudulent voter registration activities should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

The secretary of state advised Nevada voters to call local election officials to confirm their registration before Election Day. Tuesday was the deadline to register.

Jon Summer, a spokesman for the Nevada Democratic State Committee, said the party would file a lawsuit seeking to reopen the registration process for voters whose forms might have been destroyed.

"We don't really know how many victims there are in this case," he said.

A spokesman for Heller, Steve George, said the number of new voters added to Nevada rolls since the 2002 election will be between 200,000 to 350,000.

Nevada's population grew 3.4. percent in the past two years, making it the fast-growing state in the nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. President Bush won the state in 2000 by about 22,000 votes.

Voter Outreach of America is also under investigation in Oregon for "alteration and destruction of voter registration cards," said Anne Martens, a spokeswoman for Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury.

She said her office had received numerous complaints since CNN affiliate KGW in Portland broadcast a report spotlighting an out-of-state canvasser who was registering only Republicans.

"That's how I get paid, and I am doing it for the money," said the canvasser, whom KGW identified as Mike Johnson. He said he received $5 per card. The TV report aired Tuesday -- the registration deadline in Oregon.

"We didn't know this was going on until that happened," Martens said. "We're launching a full investigation."

__________________________________________________________​

source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Campaign 2004: Voter registration workers cry foul
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
By Dennis B. Roddy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

An ostensibly nonpartisan voter registration drive in Western Pennsylvania has triggered accusations that workers were cheated out of wages and given instructions to avoid adding anyone to the voter rolls who might support the Democratic presidential nominee.

Sproul & Associates, a consulting firm based in Chandler, Ariz., hired to conduct the drive by the Republican National Committee, employed several hundred canvassers throughout the state to register new voters. Some workers yesterday said they were told to avoid registering Democrats or anyone who indicated support for Democratic nominee John F. Kerry.

"We were told that if they wanted to register Democrat, there was no way we were to register them to vote," said Michele Tharp, of Meadville, who said she was sent out to canvass door-to-door and outside businesses in Meadville, Crawford County. "We were only to register Republicans."

Tharp said volunteers were sent door-to-door to seek registrants but were instructed to first ask prospective new voters which candidate they planned to support.

"If they said Kerry, we were just supposed to say thank you and walk away," Tharp said.

Brenda Snyder, a volunteer with the Republican Victory Center in Erie said workers "absolutely never" were told not to register Democrats. She said some workers were not paid "because of discrepancies in their paychecks" and said the party was attempting to correct the problem. Tharp, for instance, said she was paid only $14 for 15 hours of work after being hired at a rate of $11 per hour.

Heather Layman, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, confirmed Sproul's role in the effort and said that complaints by 45 to 50 workers who had not been paid had been straightened out. Layman denied that the canvassers avoided registering Democrats and suggested that Democrats were orchestrating the charges.

"I do smell politics here if that's what they're saying," Layman said.

Much of the controversy yesterday centered on the registration drive in Crawford County, where canvassers claimed to be owed thousands of dollars after hunting out Bush supporters.

"If they were a Kerry voter, we were just supposed to walk away," said Michael Twilla, of Meadville, who said he has been paid for only eight of 72 hours he worked.

Twilla provided the Post-Gazette with a copy of the script he said he had been given.

It instructs the canvassers to hand unregistered Bush supporters a clipboard with a registration form, and to advise them the canvassers will personally deliver the forms to the local courthouse.

A lower portion of the form also advises the canvassers to ask undecided voters two questions: "Do you consider yourself pro-choice or pro life?" and "Are you worried about the Democrats raising taxes?" If voters say they are pro-life, the form says, "Ask if they are registered to vote. If they are pro-choice, say thank you and walk away."

The form also tells canvassers, "If anyone asks who you are working for, it's 'Project America Vote.' "

America Votes, whose name is similar, is a self-described nonpartisan voter registration organization sponsored by generally liberal-leaning groups.

Several canvassers said they had been instructed to skip the lower portion of the form and others said they were told to say they were working for a local employment agency.

Twilla said the canvassers were told to say they worked for Career Concepts, a local employment agency. Career Concepts was contracted by a Florida firm, Apple One, to assist them in locating temporary employees. A spokeswomen for Career Concepts last night said her firm did not employ the canvassers.

Sproul's role in voter registration drives this month triggered official investigations in several other states, with canvassers alleging they had been told to discard Democratic registration forms, leaving voters who thought they had registered off the rolls.

The firm has a contract with the Republican National Committee to register new voters and has operated using the name Voters Outreach of America. Sproul's chairman, Nathan Sproul, is a former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party.

The firm attracted attention in Pittsburgh last month when Sproul employees called a Carnegie Library official to request space outside the buildings to register voters.

Holly McCullough, special assistant to the library director, said a woman from the firm said they were working for America Votes, the nonpartisan but liberal leaning organization.

McCullough said she agreed to allow the group to set up at the libraries.

"I said there has to be no issue advocacy. It has to do nonpartisan voter registration and they said that was right," McCullough said. Instead, several days later, McCullough received a call from Ryan Hughes, director of the Woods Run library branch, saying patrons had complained about the behavior of the canvassers.

Hughes said a patron came in the library Sept. 7 "and said 'There's this person out there asking me who I was voting for.' "But McCullough said she also became concerned because she discovered that Sproul was not working for America Votes, and that the registration drive was being organized by the Republican Party.
 
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<font size="5"><center>
Nevada files voter fraud charges against ACORN</font size>

<font size="4">
Nevada's attorney general filed criminal charges accusing ACORN
and two of its employees of facilitating voter registration fraud
in November's election by requiring canvassers to submit 20
applications each day or face termination; No evidence
that the phony registrations led to the casting of
votes using fake identities; ACORN assailed
the action as "political grandstanding</font size></center>




McClatchy Newspapers
By Greg Gordon
Monday, May 4, 2009


WASHINGTON — Nevada's attorney general on Monday filed criminal charges accusing liberal community activist group ACORN and two of its employees of facilitating voter registration fraud in November's election by requiring canvassers to submit 20 applications each day or face termination.

Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, both Democrats, announced the charges, stressing that there's no evidence that the phony registrations led to the casting of votes using fake identities.

A spokesman for ACORN, a nationwide grassroots organization, assailed the action as "political grandstanding."

The group stressed that it instigated the inquiry by turning over to the Clark County, Nev., registrar the names of 44 workers who were fired for submitting bogus registration forms and that it ordered an employee to stop offering bonuses to workers who turned in more than the daily goal of 20 forms.

"There was no firm quota," spokesman Scott Levenson said.

Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax said that ACORN canvassers submitted 91,002 registration forms last year, resulting in 62,905 new registrations after the elimination of duplicates and questionable applications.

ACORN became a flashpoint last fall when Republican presidential candidate John McCain said during a debate with Barack Obama that the group "may be perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history."

The next day, the Associated Press reported that the FBI was investigating whether the group had systematically coordinated the submissions of voter registrations in several states — a report that later proved to be exaggerated. Law enforcement officials later said that the inquiry, which ended months ago, never rose to a formal investigation.

The Nevada complaint alleges 26 counts of "Compensation for Registration of Voters," which it called a felony under state law.

"By structuring employment and compensation around a quota system, ACORN facilitated voter registration fraud in this state," Attorney General Masto said. She alleged that the group's training manuals "clearly detail, condone and, indeed, require illegal acts."

The complaint accuses Christopher Edwards, former field director for ACORN's Las Vegas office, of creating a "Blackjack" or "21+" system that awarded a $5 bonus to low-paid canvassers who brought in 21 or more completed registration forms in a day. It alleges that Amy Busefink, ACORN's deputy regional director, approved the scheme.

Levenson took strong issue with the complaint.

"If somebody got 17 (applications) every day, their job was pretty secure," he said. "What we were obviously concerned about is making sure people actually worked. If a canvasser came in every day with two registration forms . . . that was a problem."

Michael Slater, executive director of Project Vote, a national registration group that's funded ACORN's canvassing, said he was "shocked" that ACORN now faces a criminal case while no charges were brought against the 44 ex-workers to whom the group alerted authorities.


http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/67500.html
 
Sour grapes! It's 2010 already and Obama's push on cracking down on the wealthy isn't helping. They are like the Michael Corleone. You come after their family, they will come after you with everything they have! Obama should take to heart that he won with the largest majority in 20 years. The people are behind him, and just like FDR as long as populist is with you, democracy works! This is why the corptists want term limits.
 
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