ACORN: Another pathetic attempt to distract

[motivez]

From the ACORN official memo:

As The Nation pointed out recently, ACORN's success in registering millions of low-income and minority voters has made it "something of a right-wing bogeyman." Though ACORN believes that the right to vote is not, and should never be, a partisan issue, attacks from groups threatened by our historic success continue to come, motivated by partisan politics and often perpetuated by the media without full investigation of the facts. As a result, there have been a few recent stories about investigations of former ACORN workers for turning in incomplete, erroneous, or fraudulent voter registration applications. Predictably, partisan forces have tried to use these isolated incidents to incite fear of the "bogeyman" of "widespread voter fraud." But we want to take this opportunity to set the record straight and tell you a few facts to show how these incidents really exemplify everything that ACORN is doing right:

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 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.

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.

Fact: No charges have ever been brought against ACORN itself. Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained through our quality control and verification processes.

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.

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 and allowed to vote, so there is also NO incentive to "disrupt the system" with phony cards.

Fact: Similar accusations were made, and attacks launched, against ACORN and other voter registration organizations in 2004 and 2006. These attacks were not only groundless, they have since been exposed as part of the U.S. Attorneygate scandal and revealed to be part of a systematic partisan agenda of voter suppression.

These are the facts, and the truth is that a relatively small group of political operatives are trying to orchestrate hysteria about "voter fraud" and manufacture public outrage that they can use to further suppress the votes of millions of low-income and minority Americans.

If any of you have ever registered anyone to vote while working for a campaign, you know you don't have a choice in which voter registration forms to turn in.

If I register someone and they're a Communist, I can't legally go throw that out the window of my car or decide not to turn it in to the campaign.

Likewise, the campaign is legally obligated to turn in the registration forms it receives from its volunteers and staff.

The same is true with ACORN and other organizations. They are simply a conduit for the forms, they help facilitate the process of registration, they don't decide which forms are valid and thus which to send in, if they did.. they would be violating the law.

So, here we have another case of false outrage by Republicans.. all the while the Republicans actually go around trying to remove thousands of legitimate voters from being able to vote.. of course, they're targeting those living in predominately poor and minority districts which, typically vote for Democrats. Go figure.

This entire thing is a pathetic attempt at a distraction, and nothing more. In the past, ACORN has, as they've stated, cooperated with authorities when they learned someone working for them had violated the law.

They have no incentive whatsoever to falsify registrations, they don't get to decide which ones "count" .. and if some happened to get past the Board of Elections and got sent to these bogus addresses, there wouldn't be anyone there to collect the cards if there was a delivery attempt, and then there would have to be some huge, organized effort to defraud on election day

There's no evidence of anything of that nature.

Also, for the neocons running around like chickens with their heads cut off about Obama's supposed "ties" to this organization.. can you seriously tell me he's been personally involved in any of their efforts in the last 5 years? This year? With any of the specific organizations who are accused of voter registration fraud?

Of course you can't. So stop trying to make it an issue, because it's just making you look stupid.

[kinggovernor]

a RICO case hasn't been made against ACORN but they have broken the law all across the country. Perhaps it is time to put a task force together to make it a RICO case.

[motivez]

What law are you alleging they broke "all across the country"?

[kinggovernor]

Fact: Similar accusations were made, and attacks launched, against ACORN and other voter registration organizations in 2004 and 2006. These attacks were not only groundless, they have since been exposed as part of the U.S. Attorneygate scandal and revealed to be part of a systematic partisan agenda of voter suppression.

Missouri officials suspect fake voter registration

By BILL DRAPER, Associated Press WriterWed Oct 8, 9:45 PM ET

Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states.

Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. She said they were bogging down work Wednesday, the final day Missourians could register to vote.

"I don't even know the entire scope of it because registrations are coming in so heavy," Davis said. "We have identified about 100 duplicates, and probably 280 addresses that don't exist, people who have driver's license numbers that won't verify or Social Security numbers that won't verify. Some have no address at all."

The nonpartisan group works to recruit low-income voters, who tend to lean Democratic. Most polls show Republican presidential candidate John McCain with an edge in bellwether Missouri, but Democrat Barack Obama continues to put up a strong fight.

Jess Ordower, Midwest director of ACORN, said his group hasn't done any registrations in Kansas City since late August. He said he was told three weeks ago by election officials that there were only about 135 questionable cards — 85 of them duplicates.

"They keep telling different people different things," he said. "They gave us a list of 130, then told someone else it was 1,000."

FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton said the agency has been in contact with elections officials about potential voter fraud and plans to investigate.

"It's a matter we take very seriously," Patton said. "It is against the law to register someone to vote who does not fall within the parameters to vote, or to put someone on there falsely."

On Tuesday, authorities in Nevada seized records from ACORN after finding fraudulent registration forms that included the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys.

In April, eight ACORN workers in St. Louis city and county pleaded guilty to federal election fraud for submitting false registration cards for the 2006 election. U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said they submitted cards with false addresses and names, and forged signatures.

Ordower said Wednesday that ACORN registered about 53,500 people in Missouri this year. He believes his group is being targeted because some politicians don't want that many low-income people having a voice.

"It's par for the course," he said. "When you're doing more registrations than anyone else in the country, some don't want low-income people being empowered to vote. There are pretty targeted attacks on us, but we're proud to be out there doing the patriotic thing getting people registered to vote."

Republicans are among ACORN's loudest critics. At a campaign stop in Bethlehem, Pa., supporters of John McCain interrupted his remarks Wednesday by shouting, "No more ACORN."

Debbie Mesloh, spokeswoman for the Obama campaign in Missouri, said in an e-mailed statement that the campaign supported any investigation of possible fraud.

If it wasn't true why did they plead guily

[motivez]

I'll respond to your bolded assertions since you didn't cite a law the organization broke:

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

"I don't even know the entire scope of it because registrations are coming in so heavy," Davis said. "We have identified about 100 duplicates, and probably 280 addresses that don't exist, people who have driver's license numbers that won't verify or Social Security numbers that won't verify. Some have no address at all."

And? ACORN, again, has a legal obligation to turn in every voter registration form they receive, regardless of the validity.. it's the same way when I register someone.

If they put their name down as Mickey Mouse, and I turn it into the campaign office, they have to legally send it in. It's not up to them.

As an organization, they take the extra step of flagging suspicious looking ones as potential problems before turning them into the Board of Elections.

So, you fail on that point.

Lets go on to point 2:

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

In April, eight ACORN workers in St. Louis city and county pleaded guilty to federal election fraud for submitting false registration cards for the 2006 election. U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said they submitted cards with false addresses and names, and forged signatures.

And? They've said they cooperated with authorities when it came to light that some of their workers had violated the law.

There's no monetary incentive to turn in more forms, they are paid by the hour. So, if they wanted to make money easily, they'd not turn any in.

You have absolutely no proof that it's some kind of organization-wide effort.. it's an incredibly large organization, so there's always a chance that some people working for them will do something stupid or illegal.. it doesn't mean it's an organization wide policy, or a conspiracy from the top down.

So, you fail on that point as well.

Anything else?

Lastly, what motivation do you think there is for registering a bunch of fake people? They still have to get send to the Board of Elections, where they can screen out the bad registrations.. and if some get past, who's going to pick them up at the "Jimmy Johns" restaurant?

The owner is just going to give the guy the voter registration card with the name of the establishment on it from his pile of mail? ..Give me a break.

[kinggovernor]

The Press Release:

NITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI

CATHERINE L. HANAWAY
United States Attorney


NEWS RELEASE
For further information: Call Public Affairs Officer Jan Diltz at (314) 539-7719

April 2, 2008
For Immediate Release

EIGHT ACORN VOTER REGISTRATION WORKERS PLEAD GUILTY TO FEDERAL ELECTION FRAUD CHARGES

St. Louis, MO: Eight voter registration workers, employed by The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), have entered guilty pleas on election fraud charges in connection with the November 2006 general election, United States Attorney Catherine L. Hanaway announced today.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (“ACORN”) is a not-for-profit organization, and during 2006 maintained and operated an office at 4304 Manchester Avenue in the City of St. Louis, in part to conduct a voter registration drive for the November 7, 2006, general election.

Project Vote is a not-for-profit organization that works with ACORN to register voters for federal and local elections. Project Vote funded ACORN in the 2006 voter registration drive.

“Free and fair elections are the bedrock that our nation and our society were founded upon. This type of criminal activity undermines the public’s confidence in government, and should not be tolerated by citizens of the community,” said Hanaway. “We intend to investigate vigorously, and prosecute fully, any allegations of fraud in our election system.”

ACORN and Project Vote recruited and employed workers to obtain voter registrations in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County during 2006. The workers were trained and instructed by ACORN and Project Vote on how to obtain voter registrations and how to prepare voter registration applications, which included training and instruction that the actual voter must sign the voter application and that a forged signature is a violation of the law.

From July through October 2006, these eight defendants were employed by ACORN as voter registration workers to obtain voter registrations in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County. They have all pled guilty to various counts of election fraud for submitting false voter registration applications through ACORN to the St. Louis City and St. Louis County Board of Election Commissions falsely stating addresses, names and other information of the voters being registered, and which contained forged signatures of the purported applicants, in violation of Title 42, United States Code, sections 1973i(c) and 1973 gg-10, election fraud. The defendants are:

* BRIAN BLAND, St. Louis, pled guilty Monday, and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 26, 2008
* BOBBIE JEAN CHEEKS, a/k/a Dorothy Jones & Bobbie Tobert, St. Louis, pled yesterday, and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 26, 2008
* CORTEZ COWAN, St. Louis, pled today, and is scheduled to be sentence on June 25, 2008
* GOLDEN GIBSON, St. Louis, pled Monday, and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 26, 2008
* RADONNA MARIE SMITH, St. Louis, pled today, and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 25, 2008
* ANTHONY M. RELIFORD, St. Louis, pled last week, and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 19, 2008
* KENNETH DEMOND WILLIAMS, St. Louis, pled and was sentenced to 15 months prison on March 13
* TYAIRA L. WILLIAMS, a/k/a Tootsie Roll, St. Louis, pled March 25 and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 19, 2008

Each defendant faces a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and/or fines up to either $10,000 or $250,000, depending on the charge.

In discussions with the United States Attorney’s Office, ACORN has agreed to implement a plan to improve voter registration and quality control procedures. ACORN is planning to strengthen the system it has to monitor and address performance problems, and has agreed to meet with prosecutors to discuss how best to report possible illegal activity. ACORN has agreed that comprehensive training will be required of all quality control and management staff. ACORN has agreed to the creation of a General Counsel position to monitor ACORN programs, and who will communicate with local election officials to address problems. Further, ACORN has agreed to assign a 13-year ACORN veteran and Missouri Head Organizer to St. Louis full-time to personally oversee any future voter registration drives.

Hanaway acknowledged the assistance of the St. Louis City and St. Louis County Election Boards and commended the work performed on the case by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Postal Inspection Service and Assistant United States Attorney Hal Goldsmith, who is handling the case for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/moe/press_...ril/acorn.html

If it was a part of a systemic partisan agenda, then why did ACORN agree to everything the government wanted? If they were correct and if Tootsie Roll and her 7 friends weren't in fact breaking the law then they should have fought it.

[Scrum]

They raided the Nevada office because of 40+ bad applications out of 80K. ACORN were the ones that told them about the bad applications and they got their offices raided as a reward.

This is politically motivated to try and block out low income voters.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by motivez

What law are you alleging they broke "all across the country"?

election fraud.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

Stop trying to change the subject from what's happening now to something else

They're legally obligated to send in the forms, they've cooperated with authorities when their employees were found violating the law.. and they've alerted the Boards of Elections to the potentially troublesome registrations by flagging them before sending them in.

So

[motivez]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

election fraud.

You've failed to establish anything supporting the accusation

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by Scrum

They raided the Nevada office because of 40+ bad applications out of 80K. ACORN were the ones that told them about the bad applications and they got their offices raided as a reward.

This is politically motivated to try and block out low income voters.

then why would there be a raid

Updated 8:55 p.m.
By Mary Pat Flaherty
The Nevada office of ACORN had planned a potluck dinner at its Las Vegas office Tuesday night to celebrate the 80,000 newly registered voters its staff had signed up in Clark County as part of its work with low-income communities nationwide.

Instead, their office was raided Tuesday morning by agents of the Nevada Secretary of State and Attorney General who alleged in an application for a search warrant that ACORN had hired 59 felons through a work release program as canvassers and submitted nearly 300 apparently fraudulent voter registration cards as part of the drive.

The submitted voter cards included addresses and names that do not exist in Nevada, duplicate registrations, names culled from telephone books and names of Dallas Cowboys players, an investigator for the Secretary of State alleged in his affidavit for a search warrant.

One ex-employee of ACORN reached by the state investigator told him she began making up names for her forms on days when it was too hot to work outside. ACORN canvassers are paid by the hour. Ex-employees also said they were expected to collect 20 complete forms a shift or risk probation and termination, the investigator said in his affidavit.

ACORN Nevada Office Raided | The Trail | washingtonpost.com

[motivez]

Originally Posted by Scrum

They raided the Nevada office because of 40+ bad applications out of 80K. ACORN were the ones that told them about the bad applications and they got their offices raided as a reward.

This is politically motivated to try and block out low income voters.

Pretty much my thoughts, and then they get to have all this false outrage about "voter registration fraud" .. which is different than actual voter fraud, which I don't think any of the neocons running around screaming about this can point to an actual case of someone voting illegally after turning in a phony voter registration form recently

This while the Republican party tries to purge 6000+ actual voters from lower income, minority districts that typically vote for Democrats.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by motivez

Stop trying to change the subject from what's happening now to something else

They're legally obligated to send in the forms, they've cooperated with authorities when their employees were found violating the law.. and they've alerted the Boards of Elections to the potentially troublesome registrations by flagging them before sending them in.

So

That is the press from the April 2006 conviction, it tells the whole story. And it appears that this is just 1 or 2 or even 8 renegades in one office but a problem across the country. Its too bad that it takes the wheels of justice to turn, but hopefully after the election this group gets taken down.

[motivez]

Duplicate registrations are probably common

When I've been out talking to people during canvassing, some people have said "I'm not sure if my form got there, I haven't heard back and it's been almost a month since I've sent it in."

I've asked them to fill out another one to be safe than sorry if they don't show up on the sites where they can search for their registration information.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

That is the press from the April 2006 conviction, it tells the whole story. And it appears that this is just 1 or 2 or even 8 renegades in one office but a problem across the country. Its too bad that it takes the wheels of justice to turn, but hopefully after the election this group gets taken down.

Yeah, we wouldn't want hundreds of thousands of new minority voters turning out to the polls.. what a horrible organization

You have not established one iota of evidence suggesting this is something systemic to the organization instead of stupid people doing stupid things who happen to be employed

Again, though I've said it several times, they've fired the people and cooperated when they noticed bullshit taking place.

[Rouger2]

Originally Posted by motivez

Stop trying to change the subject from what's happening now to something else

They're legally obligated to send in the forms, they've cooperated with authorities when their employees were found violating the law.. and they've alerted the Boards of Elections to the potentially troublesome registrations by flagging them before sending them in.

So

Your exactly right, and all he had in response was lots of words to try to confuse as you also pointed out.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by motivez

Yeah, we wouldn't want hundreds of thousands of new minority voters turning out to the polls.. what a horrible organization

You have not established one iota of evidence suggesting this is something systemic to the organization instead of stupid people doing stupid things who happen to be employed

Again, though I've said it several times, they've fired the people and cooperated when they noticed bullshit taking place.

How many convictions/investigations would it take before you would be convinced that it is systemic not just a few dozen state people all over the country.

[motivez]

When I start seeing convictions of people at the top levels of the organization and not just the grunts, as happened in 2006.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by motivez

When I start seeing convictions of people at the top levels of the organization and not just the grunts, as happened in 2006.

I agree, a RICO investigation is necessary.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

I agree, a RICO investigation is necessary.

There's been no evidence that anything here is systemic

Again, if some crazy worker drops off a bunch of forms with "TEH KING" on them as the name and "666 AWESOME ROAD" as the address, they're still LEGALLY OBLIGATED to turn that in to the Board of Elections.

What don't you understand about that?

They don't decide which get sent in or not, it's not their job to filter the registrations by which are valid and which are not, that's the Board of Elections job.