Posted on 09/26/2008 12:00:34 AM PDT by Jet Jaguar
COLLIER COUNTY: Voter registration fraud has been detected in one Florida county and now Republicans are pointing their finger at one organization designed to get minorities to vote.
The accusations are against the "Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now," or ACORN.
The Republican National Committee accuses ACORN of creating fraudulent voter registration cards in an effort to benefit democrats.
ACORN admits that they had a case of voter fraud happen this week in Seminole County, but say they have since fired that employee and the faulty registration has been thrown out.
But this has caused the RNC to question ACORN's registration practices.
"This organization is not new to this game they are a quasi-criminal Democratic affiliation organization," said RNC Chief Counsel Sean Cairncross.
ABC7 talked to several election supervisors and found nothing criminal about the organization itself.
ACORN says it's non-partisan, but feel Republicans unfairly link them to Democrats because they help register low income and minority voters.
"The McCain campaign and the RNC are basically attacking groups that empower minority voters by getting help for folks get registered and get to the polls on election day," said Brian Kettenring, head organizer for ACORN in Florida.
But even if an organization tries passing off faulty registration cards, a statewide voter registration system still double checks the information.
"The system would say it's not matching so the system's pretty good about that," said Collier County Chief Deputy Supervisor of Elections Gary Beauchamp.
And Beauchamp says there's always the failsafe that voters have to show ID before casting ballots.
Collier, Lee and Charlotte county election officials haven't had problems with "ACORN" or any other third party voter registration organizations yet. But they say they are always on the lookout.
Collier, Lee and Charlotte county election officials haven’t had problems with “ACORN”........”move on” /s
And now ACORN is getting $140 billion in the bailout? Are we a banana republic? Barack is Daniel Ortega?
Was about to say the same thing! What kind of a President do we have that wanted to ram this bill down the throats of the taxpayer?
Why doesn’t the Republican Attory General investigate these crooks and nail them?
These bastards are stealing votes!! This ain’t funny folks.
If they are not Democrat operatives, they certainly ARE un-American operatives! There is no justification on this planet for these criminals to get ANY bailout money!
When ACORN showed up in the bail out package I nearly died. What the HELL did we nearly get snookered with? I can’t believe Bush was on board with this theft!!!
community disorganizers
“And now ACORN is getting $140 billion in the bailout? Are we a banana republic? Barack is Daniel Ortega?”
Yes, we are. The Marxists are making a blatant power play after dumbing down the population for 30+ years by taking over the public education and media institutions. At least a third of the public is wholly deceived or actively involved in helping them. The $140B grab shows that they aren’t even trying to hide their motives anymore, which means they are confident that they have enough backing to throw off all restraint.
I hope they’ve jumped the shark, but either way, it’s going to get ugly and soon.
“ABC7 talked to several election supervisors and found nothing criminal about the organization itself.”
Well, maybe ABC7 should get off it’s butt and do a little hard investigating instead of talking to election supervisors (who are usually Democrats).
******
Last week, Milwaukee’s top election official announced plans to seek criminal investigations of 37 ACORN employees accused of offering gifts to sign up voters (including prepaid gas cards and restaurant cards) or falsifying driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers or other information on voter registration cards.
Last month, a New Mexico TV station reported on the child rapists, drug offenders and forgery convicts on ACORN’s payroll. In July, Pennsylvania investigators asked the public for help in locating a fugitive named Luis R. Torres-Serrano, who is accused “of submitting more than 100 fraudulent voter registration forms he collected on behalf of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now to county election officials.”
Also in July, a massive, nearly $1 million embezzlement scheme by top ACORN officials was exposed.
Jim Terry, an official from the Consumer Rights League, a watchdog group that monitors ACORN, noted: “ACORN has a long and sordid history of employing convoluted Enron-style accounting to illegally use taxpayer funds for their own political gain. Now it looks like ACORN is using the same type of convoluted accounting scheme for Obama’s political gain.” With a wave of his magic wand, Obama amended his FEC forms to change the “advance work” to “get-out-the-vote” work.
$140 billion to ACORN is not accurate:
See: updated
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/25/kill-the-bailout-more-acorn-funding/
And other FR posts.
Either the leadership of ACORN encourages fraud, or it hasn’t the competence to keep it from happening. Given the convictions of some of its workers for fraud and the continuing instances of it, it doesn’t appear that ACORN has any desire to stop fraud, and indeed operates for the purpose of committing it.
8/11/08
Criminal probe launched v. ACORN in Wisconsin
Union-backed voter-fraud group in more hot water
A Milwaukee County prosecutor says a criminal investigation is under way into irregularities involving a voter registration drive. Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf says his office and the Milwaukee police are following up on referrals made by the city’s election commission.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday the commission had referred the names of 6 special deputy registrars for possible prosecution. Commission director Sue Edman says the canvassers worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. She says they fabricated hundreds of voter registration forms.
******
ACORN and Obama’s Democratic national criminal platform: “We oppose laws that require identification in order to vote or register to vote.”
******
The Milwaukee district attorney is investigating 39 ACORN employees for criminal violations, including offering gifts to sign up voters and falsifying driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers or other information on voter registration cards.
Five ACORN employees were convicted and imprisoned in Washington state, in 2007, for what was described by Washington’s Secretary of State Sam Reed, as, “was the worst case of election fraud in our state’s history. It was an outrage.”
“(ACORN) Workers ... said they were under pressure from the community-organizing group that hired them to sign up more voters,” The Seattle Times reported . “Workers told investigators they went to the Seattle public library and filled out the voter registration forms, by using contrived names, addresses and Social Security numbers and in some cases plucked names from the phone book.”
Numerous ACORN-related indictments and, or convictions, have been seeded across the country in recent years.
Four part-time ACORN employees were indicted in Kansas City, Mo., for voter registration fraud in November 2006. Two Colorado ACORN workers were sentenced to community service, in January 2005, for submitting false voter registrations.
During the 2004 election, ACORN, and its sister group Project Vote, ran a nationwide voter mobilization drive that was rife with allegations of voter fraud. A worker for one ACORN affiliate in Ohio was allegedly given crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent registrations that included underage voters, dead voters and voters named Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Jive Turkey. Four Ohio ACORN employees were indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms.
Messrs. Rathke and Wiley formed ACORN in the early 1970s, expanding their involvement beyond welfare recipients to all issues touching low-income and working-class people. According to Discoverthenetworks.org, they enlisted civil rights workers and trained them in a program at Syracuse University patterned after the Saul Alinsky school of activist tactics in Chicago.
The New York Times reported in July 2008 that a whistleblower forced the organization to publicly disclose an embezzlement of almost $1 million in 1999 and 2000, involving Dale Rathke, the brother of the organization’s founder Wade Rathke.
Some ACORN executives kept the information from board members and did not tell law enforcement. Meanwhile, Dale Rathke remained on the payroll until June 2008, when disclosure of his theft forced the organization to dismiss him.
“And Beauchamp says there’s always the failsafe that voters have to show ID before casting ballots. “
Well, what about absentee balloting? Slip some registrations through the system using the traditional dead person system and a temporary address, and you can tip the balance.
Don’t depend on a central screening and polling place checks. It’s now just too easy to scam the system.
Where? Mail-in ballots require no ID..
Dead people require no ID Either~!
As I've said before, voter fraud should be a capital offense -- or it will eventually lead to a civil war.
ACORN, voter fraud...no need to read any more.
The two terms are synonymous.
That's like a used car salesman telling you he's honest.
Is it RICO time?
Just community organizers doing their job.
ACORN is a CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE that SPECIALIZES in VOTE FRAUD, and the DEMOCRATS are gibinbg them BILLIONS in the 700 BILLION BAILOUT?????
Since minorities are in the minority, each one should be able to vote at least 8 times to level the playing field. :0)
I voted for Pres. Bush twice. He has disappointed me beyond words. War on Terror is necessary. Taking it to the murderous b******* in Afghanistan and Iraq, IMO, was the right thing to do. But then something happened and Bush apparantly opted to fight a minimalist rather than decisive war. Hence, seven years later, we have not nailed down the lid on these guys. President finds a way to turn a positive to a negative.
Tax cuts were a good thing. Did what they were supposed to do. Economy should have been healthy. But, despite warnings from McCain, Greenspan and others, nothing was done about subprime lending. The Presdent has a cabinet postion called Housing and Urban Development. That cabinet member should have known what was coming. Once again the President turns a positive to negative.
Then we found out our President was maneuvering to remove Canadian and Mexican borders in the name of globalization. Then he got on the global warming train. Then he supported legalizing—without conditions—illegal aliens. Now he’s willing to sign up to a dem bail out bill that includes ACORN.
It’s so sad. But, thankfully, the internet is making it increasingly impossible for the elected elite to operate in the dark.
Truth is, nobody knows how much ACORN would get from the Dims’ bailout bill. The framework calls for them, and LaRaza, and others, to get a percentage of the returns on fedgov’s sales of assets from the bailout.
It doesn’t call for them to get a percentage of the $700B, though. They ARE getting part of the earlier $300B bailout directly at borrowers in trouble, if I understand that correctly.
ACORN has been associated with several HUNDRED cases of voter fraud cross-country (and in Indian reservations), with several dozen convictions - that we know of.
It IS a criminal organization, deeply funded by Obama and Ayers through his Anneburg Challenge grants, ... that the mdeia (naturally) ignores. RICO prosecution is warranted, but - of course - will be politically incorrect.
Two divisions of the same corrupt organization providing cover for the modern USA version of the old brownshirts (a third wing of the same organization).
If the public can be made aware of exactly what ACORN is and how the Rats and especially Obambam are in league with ACORN, we will have a three branch sweep this fall.
If we can make them aware of how the DNC's MSM covers for all of it, we can destroy the DNC's MSM as well. Trouble is it's hard to get the information across to the still large but shrinking numbers of people who still believe the DNC's MSM and we are getting down to weeks in which to make the point.
If we could get the public to realize what ACORN is and how deeply entwined with the Rats, we could send the genuine criminals like Chris Dodd and Barney Franks to JAIL where they belong, and there'd be a LOT more than the Chris and Barney show...
While I believe Bush is a turd and normally dont defend him, I’d give him a little credit here. I doubt a single legislator, nor the Pres, has fully read this BS.
“The Marxists are making a blatant power play after dumbing down the population for 30+ years by taking over the public education and media institutions.”
So true.
In the absence of any voter fraud, this election would be a landslide!
Yes. The strategy seems to be, "Create one, two, many Florida recounts...."
they are confident that they have enough backing to throw off all restraint.
They know the media is in the tank for them, there's a certain wind at their backs (Bush fatigue), and the people they admire--eg Bill Ayres--have bombed buildings and were never convicted of crimes. Worse, they've injected their subversive views into the education system. They've become "legit." Talk about audacity.
ACORN Suspected of Voter Fraud State Year Details
AR 1998 A contractor with ACORN-affiliated Project Vote was arrested for falsifying about 400 voter registration cards.
CO 2004 An ACORN employee admitted to forging signatures and registering three of her friends to vote 40 times.
2005 Two ex-ACORN employees were convicted in Denver of perjury for submitting false voter registrations.
FL 2004 A Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokesman said ACORN was “singled out” among suspected voter registration groups for a 2004 wage initiative because it was “the common thread” in the agency’s fraud investigations.
MI 2004 The Detroit Free Press reported that “overzealous or unscrupulous campaign workers in several Michigan counties are under investigation for voter-registration fraud, suspected of attempting to register nonexistent people or forging applications for already-registered voters.” ACORN-affiliate Project Vote was one of two groups suspected of turning in the documents.
MO 2007 Four ACORN employees were indicted in Kansas City for charges including identity theft and filing false registrations during the 2006 election.
2006 Eight ACORN employees in St. Louis were indicted on federal election fraud charges. Each of the eight faces up to five years in prison for forging signatures and submitting false information.
2003 Of 5,379 voter registration cards ACORN submitted in St. Louis, only 2,013 of those appeared to be valid. At least 1,000 are believed to be attempts to register voters illegally.
NC 2004 North Carolina officials investigated ACORN for submitting fake voter registration cards.
NM 2005 Four ACORN employees submitted as many as 3,000 potentially fraudulent signatures on the group’s Albuquerque ballot initiative. A local sheriff added: “It’s safe to say the forgery was widespread.”
2004 An ACORN employee registered a 13-year-old boy to vote. Citing this and other examples, New Mexico State Representative Joe Thompson stated that ACORN was “manufacturing voters” throughout New Mexico.
OH 2007 A man in Reynoldsburg was indicted on two felony counts of illegal voting and false registration, after being registered by ACORN to vote in two separate counties.
2004 A grand jury indicted a Columbus ACORN worker for submitting a false signature and false voter registration form. In Franklin County, two ACORN workers submitted what the director of the board of election supervisors called “blatantly false” forms. In Cuyahoga County, ACORN and its affiliate Project Vote submitted registration cards that had the highest rate of errors for any voter registration group.
MN 2004 During a traffic stop, police found more than 300 voter registration cards in the trunk of a former ACORN employee, who had violated a legal requirements that registration cards be submitted to the Secretary of State within 10 days of being filled out and signed.
PA 2008 An ACORN employee in West Reading, PA, was sentenced to up to 23 months in prison for identity theft and tampering with records. A second ACORN worker pleaded not guilty to the same charges and is free on $10,000 bail.
2004 Reading’s Director of Elections received calls from numerous individuals complaining that ACORN employees deliberately put inaccurate information on their voter registration forms. The Berks County director of elections said voter fraud was “absolutely out of hand,” and added: “Not only do we have unintentional duplication of voter registration but we have blatant duplicate voter registrations.” The Berks County deputy director of elections added that ACORN was under investigation by the Department of Justice.
TX 2004 ACORN turned in the voter registration form of David Young, who told reporters “The signature is not my signature. It’s not even close.” His social security number and date of birth were also incorrect.
VA 2005 In 2005, the Virginia State Board of Elections admonished Project Vote and ACORN for turning in a significant number of faulty voter registrations. An audit revealed that 83% of sampled registrations that were rejected for carrying false or questionable information were submitted by Project Vote. Many of these registrations carried social security numbers that exist for other people, listed non-existent or commercial addresses, or were for convicted felons in violation of state and federal election law.
In a letter to ACORN, the State Board of Elections reported that 56% of the voter registration applications ACORN turned in were ineligible. Further, a full 35% were not submitted in a timely manner, as required by law. The State Board of Elections also commented on what appeared to be evidence of intentional voter fraud. "Additionally,” they wrote, “information appears to have been altered on some applications where information given by the applicant in one color ink has been scratched through and re-entered in another color ink. Any alteration of a voter registration application is a Class 5 Felony in accordance with § 24.2-1009 of the Code of Virginia."
WA 2007 Three ACORN employees pleaded guilty, and four more were charged, in the worst case of voter registration fraud in Washington state history. More than 2,000 fraudulent voter registration cards were submitted by the group during a voter registration drive.
WI 2004 The district attorney’s office investigated seven voter registration applications Project Vote employees filed in the names of people who said the group never contacted them. Former Project Vote employee Robert Marquise Blakely told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he had not met with any of the people whose voter registration applications he signed, “an apparent violation of state law,” according to the paper.
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