Posted on 09/21/2008 2:29:17 PM PDT by markomalley
Republican National Committee officials on Friday blasted a group that's registering voters in Durham, calling it "a quasi-criminal, Democratic-affiliated organization" that represents a danger to the electoral process.
The move by RNC Chief Counsel Sean Cairncross and Communications Director Danny Diaz followed a Herald-Sun report that Durham County Board of Elections Director Mike Ashe wants state officials to check about 80 voter registration forms for possible fraud.
The forms came from a group called the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The group is more commonly known by its acronym, ACORN.
Cairncross said RNC officials "commend the vigilance" Ashe showed, and will continue to monitor the situation. He added that ACORN is "a malignant organization" with a long track record of vote-fraud transgressions.
He added that if voters aren't sure of their registration status, they should check it with the Board of Elections.
The board operates a searchable, online registration database at http://www.durhamcountync.gov/departments/elec/votersearch/index.cfm.
Ashe's move this week came after elections officials discovered that ACORN workers had registered a 14-year-old, claiming the youth was born in 1989. The minimum voting age is 18.
They also knew of "less than half a dozen" people who, after receiving a formal notice from the board telling them they'd registered, got in touch with officials to say they'd never filled out a registration form, Ashe said.
In addition, election workers also noticed that ACORN-submitted registration forms so far have included up to 125 duplicate names. It appeared that ACORN registrars -- who are paid and subject to a per-shift quota -- were using the same names repeatedly, Ashe said.
"I got like 15 Brenda Greens," Ashe said. "We're starting to get enough now that the names are looking familiar."
Similar problems tied to ACORN have been reported this summer by media outlets in New Mexico and Ohio, which like North Carolina are battlegrounds and potential swing states in this year's presidential election.
Ashe said the group has ignored his advice against hoarding registration forms and using highlighters to mark them. It's given election workers up to 1,200 forms in one stack and by using highlighters has caused the elections staff "a lot of extra work."
The elections staff is able to weed out duplicate registrations, he said.
Cairncross said ACORN has figured in vote-fraud allegations in past elections in Washington, Missouri and Pennsylvania. Registrars from the group have faced criminal charges in all of those states.
The group's misconduct is "widescale [and] nationwide," he added.
Cairncross alleged that ACORN has endangered the public by employing felons as registrars. But he and Diaz couldn't cite any North Carolina examples of that. Diaz did supply information about such a case in New Mexico.
The GOP operatives alleged that Democratic Party presidential nominee Barack Obama has longstanding and continuing ties to ACORN. Obama North Carolina campaign spokesman Paul Cox could not be reached Friday afternoon for comment.
Was ‘voter fraud’ supposed to be so important to the Bush DOJ that they were firing US Attorneys over it??????
So which ACORN chapter has Federal charges? Ever?
Which pretty much proves the whole ‘firing US Attys’ issue was BS since all 90-something of them would be fired for failing to do anything about the voter fraud in their own districts. If there is an election where democrats are on the ballot, there is voter fraud.
Shut ‘em down.....
Well, at least it is good to hear someone saying it. Even better would be for McCain or Palin to highlight the corruption of this organization, and connect the dots to Obama.
Not that I think they will, but they should.
I find it funny that the Dems have so little confidence in their candidate(s) that they resort to cheating. If they were the be all-end all they would win hands down - without cheating. LOSERS!
That is Obama’s former employer
Kudos to the RNC for keeping an eagle eye on the nefarious activities of ACORN.
THEN SOMEBODY PUT ACORN OFFICERS IN JAIL!!!!
this is RIDICULOUS!
getting paid to register people to vote should be illegal.
We have been seeing the same BS from this group for years..and it is always brushed off as a few “bad apples”.
Is NC really a potential swing state in this year’s election?
I couldn't agree more
where is Bush's DOJ ?
.
Sums it up nicely.
IIRC, the same didn’t apply to WA, WI, and PA. Seems plenty of vote fraud occurred in these states.
Among the trends:
* Black people, who make up about 22 percent of the state's population, account for more than 30 percent of new voters.
* Five urban counties -- Durham, Wake, Mecklenburg, Forsyth and Guilford -- account for more than a third of all new registrations. Almost half of the new black voters -- and four in 10 new Democrats -- come from those counties.
* Nearly 210,000 new voters are ages 18 to 24. Only one in five registered Republican.
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