Patterico's Pontifications

10/7/2008

ACORN Investigated for Voter Fraud

Filed under: 2008 Election — DRJ @ 5:40 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

A Nevada state task force has raided the Las Vegas headquarters of ACORN and are looking for evidence of voter fraud:

“Secretary of State spokesman Bob Walsh says ACORN is accused of submitting multiple voter registrations with false and duplicate names.”

Similar allegations were being investigated in Pennsylvania last July.

Following the 2006 midterm elections, there were allegations of voter fraud by ACORN in Missouri, Wisconsin, Colorado, Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. John Fund later reported on the convictions of or agreed restitution by ACORN members and organizations.

— DRJ

26 Responses to “ACORN Investigated for Voter Fraud”

  1. How long until we hear “This is not the ACORN that I knew”?

    JVW (f93297)

  2. What proven incidents were there?

    Michael Ejercito (a757fd)

  3. I think Michigan’s is having problems with them this year too. It’s more a question of look at where they are active and you’ll find problems.

    daleyrocks (d9ec17)

  4. This is from ACORN’s statement today:

    Election officials routinely ignored this information and failed to act. In early July, ACORN asked to meet with election officials to express our concerns that they were not acting on information ACORN had presented to them. ACORN met with Clark County elections officials and a representative of the Secretary of State on July 17th. ACORN pleaded with them to take our concerns about fraudulent applications seriously. One week later, elections officials asked us to provide them with a second copy of what we had previously provided to them. ACORN responded by giving election officials copies of 46 “problem application packages,” which involved 33 former canvassers.

    On September 23, ACORN had received a subpoena dated September 19^th requesting information on 15 employees, all of whom had been included in the packages we had previously submitted to election officials. ACORN provided our personnel records on these 15 employees on September 29.

    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.”

    So you have 46 bad applications out of 80,000 new voters registered in Clark County.

    jharp (2282bb)

  5. In Washington State, in 2006, there was a batch of 1800 ACORN registrations – 1794 of them were phony.

    Al (b624ac)

  6. Michael Ejercito,

    There’s more detail in the John Fund link.

    DRJ (c953ab)

  7. It is racist to even point this out. Right, Laurie?

    A shorter list would be the places where ACORN has not engaged in fraudulent behavior.

    JD (f7900a)

  8. Technically, a list that has nothing on it can not be called a list.

    Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec)

  9. JD – My name is not Laurie. I don’t roll that way. Try Icy.

    daleyrocks (d9ec17)

  10. ACORN Investigated for Voter Fraud

    In other news, water wet, sky blue, winter cold.

    Foxfier (15ac79)

  11. There’s more detail in the John Fund link.

    And the Seattle Times:

    Three of seven defendants in the biggest voter-registration fraud scheme in Washington history have pleaded guilty and one has been sentenced, prosecutors said Monday.

    The defendants were all temporary employees of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, when they allegedly filled out and submitted more than 1,800 fictitious voter-registration cards during a 2006 registration drive in King and Pierce counties.

    No votes were cast in the names of the phony voters. Prosecutors said the defendants committed fraud in order to keep their jobs without actually registering voters.

    steve (94a991)

  12. “…Prosecutors said the defendants committed fraud in order to keep their jobs without actually registering voters.”

    A tip of the proverbial ice-berg that no one wants to look at below the water-line.
    This outfit has been sharpening and honing its’ skills in the field of voter fraud for twenty years.
    They are the most dangerous, subversive orginization working to turn society up-side down in America today; and the tragedy is, they are being financed, largely, by you and me through Congressional grants and funds from big-money foundations guided by Leftist boards.

    AOracle (d30543)

  13. Democrats have historically voted for people who couldn’t vote for themselves because they were either dead or didn’t exist.

    Members of ACORN caught in vote fraud ought to be sentenced to 20 years HARD LABOR, if not a horsewhipping.

    PCD (7fe637)

  14. I hope John McCain calls upon Barack Obama to jointly condemn ACORN and others who undermine the integrity of American election system.

    Heh!

    daleyrocks (d9ec17)

  15. The pdf of the search warrant request for the Las Vegas facility makes interesting reading. According to it, ACORN hired 59 inmates eligible for work release from a nearby correctional facility to serve as canvassers, many of whom are descibed by a fellow inmate as lazy crackheads.

    Meanwhile, Obama is still trying to deny he ever worked for this group or trained it’s leaders. The problem with his argument is that there’s a public record which contradicts him.

    daleyrocks (d9ec17)

  16. Obama’s denials on his ACORN ties are nicely debunked at Sweetness & Light.

    daleyrocks (d9ec17)

  17. daleyrocks – Care to bet whether or not the media will ask Baracky about ACORN? I would also be willing to bet that if they do ask him about it, they will accept, without follow-up, his lie, I mean, explanation.

    JD (f7900a)

  18. Don’t look now, but ACORN is branching out…

    Voter fraud in Connecticut.

    Scott Jacobs (a1c284)

  19. OMG SHOCKA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    In related news, water is wet.

    JD (f7900a)

  20. #11 “No votes were cast in the names of the phony voters.”
    Registration fraud is not voter fraud. And fraud by people paid by the form is not an attempt to sway an election. You think any of the Dallas Cowboys mentioned in the newest post [no comments allowed] were actually going to try to vote?

    Meanwhile in Montana

    Republicans crossed line with voter purge attempt
    Guest opinion
    By John Bohlinger – 10/05/2008
    Frank St. Pierre, of Anaconda, fought in World War II. He is one of the most decorated living veterans in America. And yet, on Wednesday, my party — the Montana Republican Party — tried to invalidate his voter registration because he lives in a county with a lot of Democrats. Incredible as this may sound to you, it is the truth.

    When people ask why, as a Republican, I agreed to become part of a Democratic administration, I tell them that I believe in putting my state before my party. This has created tension at times. On occasion the folks who run the Republican Party have tried to lock me out of their convention, and this year they even tried to prevent me from speaking at the Presidential Primary Caucus in support of John McCain.

    I have always taken this treatment in stride. As the saying goes, “All’s fair in love, war and politics.” But the executive director of the Republican Party crossed the line when he attempted to remove 6,000 voters from the rolls in Montana. These voters are law-abiding citizens and are legally registered. Some are veterans. Others are active servicemen, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan or about to be deployed there.

    As a Republican, I was ashamed to hear of this. But as a Marine, I was outraged. Why would the Republican Party, which always claims to care greatly about our troops, do this?

    It appears that Republican operatives looked to gain an advantage by purging as many voters as possible from counties that lean Democrat. The director of the Republican Party issued a blanket challenge to validly registered voters based on false criteria, trying to persuade election clerks that a mere change of mailing address is grounds for automatic cancellation of voter registration.

    Not only was the effort blatantly deceptive, but the Republicans based their challenge on a national change-of-address database from an out-of-state vendor who sells personal information. Among other problems, this database lists servicemen and women who have been deployed overseas as having moved out of Montana. In other words, if you go to Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Fort Sill, Okla., to report for active duty, you have “moved out of the state” according to this list.

    A significant number of the 6,000 voters targeted were servicemen, including Kevin Furey, a former state legislator from Missoula who left the legislature to serve in Iraq; Cindie Kalan-Green, who is also serving in Iraq; and Mathew Robison, who I am told has been deployed to Fort Drum.

    The difference between the stupidity and petty corruption at ACORN and the sheer perversity at the republican party is hard to confuse.

    Nanker Feldge (563863)

  21. Nanker Fledge is that same troll that does nothing but post links to other people’s words.

    JD (f7900a)

  22. Registration fraud is not voter fraud.

    Nanker – Does taking someone off the voting rolls improperly prevent them from voting?

    Does Montana require voter ID?

    Are you against fair elections?

    daleyrocks (d9ec17)

  23. “The difference between the stupidity and petty corruption at ACORN”

    Nanker – Nice attempt at minimization!

    daleyrocks (d9ec17)

  24. Naker:
    putting in a change of address is a standard tactic to try to *steal* someone’s vote. Thus:

    http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/montana_gop_challenges_eligibility_of_6000_voters/C37/L37/
    It means those who are registered to vote in Missoula, Butte-Silver Bow, Lewis and Clark, Deerlodge, Glacier or Hill counties and who filled out a change-of-address card with the U.S. Postal Service in the past 18 months will likely have to verify their correct address before the Nov. 4 election. Most of the voters being challenged are registered in Missoula County.

    Foxfier (15ac79)

  25. And leave us not forget the immense success of voter registration efforts in Marion County Indiana…

    105% of eligible voters have registered to vote.

    Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec)

  26. Scott – Baracky will get 101% of that 105%.

    JD (f7900a)

  27. ACORN has been a target of the RNC and the White House since 2004, not because ACORN has perpetrated any actual fraud, but because they register very large numbers of Democrats.

    ACORN has been charged a dozen times, indicted half a dozen times (all but one of which were dropped), and taken to court once. They were NOT found guilty of any fraud, although 3 former employees were found guilty.

    Why? Well, ACORN reviews all incoming registrations taken by employees (who, btw, are NOT paid per registration but instead are paid by the hour) and bundles those they think are valid separately from those they think might not be valid. They then send the registrations to the Secretary of State with the appropriate warnings on the possibly problematic registrations. In addition, when a local ACORN manager discovers that an employee is filling out invalid or fraudulent applications, such an employee is terminated.

    Why do they send possibly bad registrations to the Secretary of State’s office? Because they are legally REQUIRED to do so.

    This entire line of Republican idiocy regarding ACORN is nothing more than an obfuscatory smokescreen designed specifically to minimize the MILLIONS of actual cases of vote fraud currently being perpetrated by the RNC and the McCain campaign. Fraudulent absentee ballots are being mailed to Democrats in all of the ‘swing’ states by Republican operatives. In some cases, these ballots will be rejected because the ballot form itself is invalid. In other cases, the ballots have a non-existent reply address and will never be submitted when mailed. In yet another ploy, these ballots are being mailed to Democrats in states where an authorization is required from the state before an absentee ballot can be used.

    But that’s not the only vote fraud being perpetrated by the Republican Party. All over the U.S., the GOP is attempting to force all registrations from the last couple of years to be validated against databases from other state administrative departments or from private companies.

    If your voter registration lists your first name as ‘Joseph’ but some other database indicates that your first name is ‘Joe’, your voter registration will be invalidated. If your registration indicates that you live at 253 State Ave., but another database indicates that your correct address should be 253 State St., your voter registration will be invalidated, etc., etc., etc….elimination of voting rights by typo.

    LITERALLY MILLIONS of people who have registered in the last two years are going to the polls in the coming election without realizing that they have been removed from the voter rolls for no reason except that they registered in the last couple of years.

    Why is this being done? Well, the Republican Party has decided that losing the 20% of those recent registrants whose votes might have gone to Republican candidates is worth it if they can get rid of the 80% whose votes are likely to go to Democrats.

    Martel (286459)

  28. Martel – It sounds like you actually believe the ACORN spin. That’s nice for you. Interviews with their own employees and employees of the secretary of state’s for a number of states confirm that the procedures you outlines above are not being followed. That never stops the ACORN spin machine, however.

    Do you have some links you could provide about the fake absentee ballots to verify your claims? How about some links on your other claims? Those sound like the way Obama first got elected to the Illinois Senate.

    daleyrocks (d9ec17)


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