ACORN

[Taem]

I was reading the news today and stumbled upon this article: LINK

THE PRO-BARACK VOTE-FRAUD DRIVE

Posted: 4:34 am
October 8, 2008

SYSTEMIC corruption of our election process continues. Barack Obama and his old friends at ACORN and Project Vote are leading the way. This radical revolution is taking place in your backyard. And as I've reported before, this voter-fraud racket is on your dime.

On Monday, the two groups announced the wrap-up of a 21-state voter-registration drive targeting low-income people and minorities in such battleground states as Ohio, Pennyslvania, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Wisconsin.

What's wrong with that? For starters, these two groups are militantly partisan outfits purporting to engage in nonpartisan activity. And their campaign comes amid an avalanche of fresh voter-fraud allegations involving ACORN in many of those same states.

ACORN has helped register over 1.27 million people nationwide. It gets 40 percent of its revenues from the taxpayers, with the rest coming from left-wing heavyweights like billionaire George Soros and the Democracy Alliance.

Lefty lawyer Sandy Newman founded Project Vote, a 501©(3) organization, to register voters in welfare offices and unemployment lines with the explicit goal of turning back the Reagan revolution.

The two groups are inextricably linked - and at their nexus is Barack Obama. Despite his denials of any association with the group, Obama's political DNA is encoded with the ACORN agenda.

As I've noted previously ("ACORN: O's Ugly Ally," June 26), Obama trained ACORN members in Chicago. In turn, ACORN volunteers worked on his Illinois campaigns and ACORN's PAC endorsed him in this year's Democratic primaries back in February.

And Newman hired Obama in 1992 to lead Project Vote efforts in Illinois. The effort's motto: "It's a Power Thing." Today, the Obama campaign's "Vote for Change" registration drive is running in parallel with ACORN/Project Vote, targetting the same sorts of people.

It's an all-out scramble to scrape up every last unregistered voter sympathetic to Obama's big-government vision. "Our volume," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe bragged of the voter-registration program, "is going to be enormous."

Quantity over quality. That's the ACORN way - and the fraud allegations keep piling up:

* Yesterday, Nevada officials raided ACORN's Las Vegas office after election authorities accused the group of submitting multiple voter registrations with fake and duplicate names. Among the bogus monikers: names of former Dallas Cowboys players.

* Lake County, Ind., election officials this month rejected thousands of registration forms ACORN had turned in from its drives this summer. On a conference call yesterday, GOP officials noted that up to 11,000 of the applications were no good - tying up election officials and jeopardizing the voting rights of untold victims whose identities may have been stolen.

In what seems to be ACORN's standard operating procedure, vote canvassers had pulled names and addresses from phone books and forged signatures. According to a local paper (the Northwest Indiana and Illionois Times), "Large numbers of voter registration forms bore signatures all in the same apparent handwriting style" and "apparently the organization's canvassers broke rules to meet ACORN-set voter registration quotas to get paid." The fake registrants include dead people and underage kids.

* Milwaukee, Wisc., officials last month discovered at least seven felons employed as voter-registration workers for ACORN and another affiliated group. (State law bans felons from such work.) They also uncovered a raft of problematic voter-registration cards. The state GOP accuses the group of trying to get dead, imprisoned or imaginary people on the voter rolls. Fraud has plagued ACORN's Milwaukee chapter since the last election cycle.

* In Florida, in Orange County alone, ACORN workers turned in multiple, copycat forms for six separate voters over the summer. The Miami Herald reports: "One individual had 21 duplicate applications."

Election officials had flagged ACORN's negligent practices months ago. But it may be too late: In Orange, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, ACORN has signed up 135,000 new voters, nearly 60 percent of them registered as Democrats - a fifth of all new voters in that region.

* In Ohio, large numbers of homeless people got free van and bus rides to register. Shelby Holliday, a reporter for Palestra.net, filmed ACORN shuttling in some prospects. She told me she spoke with one homeless woman who said ACORN "told her who to vote for if she wanted a 'better life,' and told her not to worry about jury duty (one of the reasons this homeless woman didn't want to register) because the government probably wouldn't be able to track her down. She was registering with a temporary address."

Holliday interviewed another homeless man targeted by the registration drive who exulted that he was voting for Obama because "I want him to do his thang. You know, do his thug thizzle."

"Thug thizzle" is street slang for performing your trademark move. Obama and ACORN have practiced their thug thizzle together for years: Organizing an ever-expanding community of ineligible and marginal voters to expand the Democrat power base. Rules be damned.

malkinblog@gmail.com

The problem is, it raises more questions for me then it answers. Like, what ties does Obama actually have to ACORN? I keep hearing ACORN and Obama tossed in the same sentence over and over, but does anybody here know what supposid ties they share? As most of you probbably know, I am pro-McCain, but I am also pro-facts and this lady's ideas in her article was pretty devoid of factual links, with a lot of inuendo. Did ACORN actually do the things she claims they did, or was she spinning news based on her opinion? I guess this bothers me so because of all the voter fraud that happened in the Bush campaign, including dead people voting, SS#'s used more than once, whole cities ballots rejected... pure bull! If I found out Obama was using this company to cheat they system, well that would enter a whole new realm of reasons why not to vote for the man. As it stands now, I will respect whoever gets elected. Thoughts? FACTS?

[vor_lord]

Truth is, both parties have and will (without involvement by the running candidates) engage in several different kinds of dirty tricks. Other dirty tricks will be done by people who have picked a side but have even less compunction about dishonesty than the parties' underbellies.

Postings such as your quote are likely partially part of this effort, yet contain some truth also. Historically Democrats have done more aggressive voter registration activities, and Republicans have done more voter intimidation strategies. Point and counterpoint.

Read this for a quick and breezy rundown of some such tricks according to a convicted former "Republican operative":

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5963751

Presidential political campaigns are huge. People on both sides justify questionable activities because the other side is also doing it. The candidates, as a necessity, will be turning a bit of a blind eye toward it. Even if they tried, they couldn't stop it.

[eppie]

As most of you probbably know, I am pro-McCain, but I am also pro-facts

Yeah, sweet.


So I guess I don't understand this fully.

I would think an legal citizen of a country could go to vote in his district where he should show some form of ID after which the people at the voting office cross out his name on the official list of voters. On this list are no dead people or children because this list is made by an official government body.

Or are you complaining about the fact that poor people are asked to vote? It seems to me that it is their right as american citizens, and you always see that many people (especially lower educated and poor) don't use this right. And if they would choose...I can imagine that they would vote for Obama. On the other hand, if as written in your quote from the registered voters that this 'ACORN' helped only 60 % voted for Obama, I can't see any bad intent in those action.

[Taem]

I would think an legal citizen of a country could go to vote in his district where he should show some form of ID after which the people at the voting office cross out his name on the official list of voters. On this list are no dead people or children because this list is made by an official government body.

* Yesterday, Nevada officials raided ACORN's Las Vegas office after election authorities accused the group of submitting multiple voter registrations with fake and duplicate names. Among the bogus monikers: names of former Dallas Cowboys players.

* Lake County, Ind., election officials this month rejected thousands of registration forms ACORN had turned in from its drives this summer. On a conference call yesterday, GOP officials noted that up to 11,000 of the applications were no good - tying up election officials and jeopardizing the voting rights of untold victims whose identities may have been stolen.

In what seems to be ACORN's standard operating procedure, vote canvassers had pulled names and addresses from phone books and forged signatures. According to a local paper (the Northwest Indiana and Illionois Times), "Large numbers of voter registration forms bore signatures all in the same apparent handwriting style" and "apparently the organization's canvassers broke rules to meet ACORN-set voter registration quotas to get paid." The fake registrants include dead people and underage kids.

* Milwaukee, Wisc., officials last month discovered at least seven felons employed as voter-registration workers for ACORN and another affiliated group. (State law bans felons from such work.) They also uncovered a raft of problematic voter-registration cards. The state GOP accuses the group of trying to get dead, imprisoned or imaginary people on the voter rolls. Fraud has plagued ACORN's Milwaukee chapter since the last election cycle.

* In Florida, in Orange County alone, ACORN workers turned in multiple, copycat forms for six separate voters over the summer. The Miami Herald reports: "One individual had 21 duplicate applications."

Election officials had flagged ACORN's negligent practices months ago. But it may be too late: In Orange, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, ACORN has signed up 135,000 new voters, nearly 60 percent of them registered as Democrats - a fifth of all new voters in that region.

* In Ohio, large numbers of homeless people got free van and bus rides to register. Shelby Holliday, a reporter for Palestra.net, filmed ACORN shuttling in some prospects. She told me she spoke with one homeless woman who said ACORN "told her who to vote for if she wanted a 'better life,' and told her not to worry about jury duty (one of the reasons this homeless woman didn't want to register) because the government probably wouldn't be able to track her down. She was registering with a temporary address."

What are you talking about? In a perfect society, you bring a SS card, you vote, there are no "duplicate" votes as is on that list. Bribing someone to vote by giving them goods or services, rather they are homeless or not, is bribery and is illegal. The list didn't specifically mention dead people "showing up" to vote, nor did it mention the infamous ballots get "lost", or even "thrown out" accidently (i.e. Florida), but a company whose premise is to win no matter what, I don't find these tasks to be too far fetched for them. What disturbs me the most about this whole thing is how after our last elections, the voter fraud was, for the most part, swept under the rug after the president took office when he should have done an investigation; don't get me wrong, many good changes have been made to ballot counting, but not nearly enough.

Now I couldn't personally care less if the Democrate or Republican party goes that "extra-mile" to get the vote of the disabled man whom can't leave his house. It's the blatent criminal activity that bothers me about the campaigns, and to think this ACORN entity is responsible for a good deal of voter fraud, well if it is true it upsets me. And like I said before, this is NOT the first time I have heard ACORN and Obama strewn in the same sentence togeather.

Or are you complaining about the fact that poor people are asked to vote? It seems to me that it is their right as american citizens, and you always see that many people (especially lower educated and poor) don't use this right. And if they would choose...I can imagine that they would vote for Obama. On the other hand, if as written in your quote from the registered voters that this 'ACORN' helped only 60 % voted for Obama, I can't see any bad intent in those action.

I will respect whoever gets elected, make no mistake about that. I did not agree with Bush on many aspects of his presedency, nor did I support his invasion of Iraq whatsoever (I actually felt Sadam knew how to keep those Arabs in check better than the Western mindset ever could), however he is still our president of the US and I will stand behind him. Same goes for Obama if he is elected. You bring up rights and freedom to vote, but I really don't know what your talking about because this topic is about manipulation of voter ballots through illegal means, not rather someone has the right to or not too vote. I know that whichever canditate is elected, he will deem upon each American as per the Constitution the right to vote, and I do not question that, nor do I fear that will even be an issue. This isin't about poor, uneducated people, so I'm sorry we got our wires crossed somewhere.

[kandrathe]

Yes, there was a huge voter fraud issue here in MN a few years ago where 400 peoples registered voting address was a popular strip club. Another where on a routine traffic stop of a former Acorn organizer was found to have 300 voter registration cards in their trunk never turned in.

Rotten Acorn

[eppie]

This isin't about poor, uneducated people, so I'm sorry we got our wires crossed somewhere.

I still don't entirely get it. I can understand fraud in counting paper voting ballots (I have only ever voted on computers by the way), I can understand the bribing of people to make them vote what you want, although this is not always easy.....I would take the money and vote like I was planning to before:).

But I don't get the whole registering thing. I remember that in the US you need to register before being allowed to vote (which I always heard was a reason why many poor and uneducated people didn't bother), but does this cost money?
We get a ballot send tho our house but of course there are the homeless people, or the ones that move house often who might run in to trouble here. But still, if one person is able to vote more than one time, it is the system that does not work. The system should make sure somebody with a certain social security number can only vote once right?


About my last remark....if these ACORN got 150.000 new voters to register and around 60 % were planning to vote for Obama it seems like hardly being worth the effort 8Assuming that McCain would get the other 40 %.....or is there 35 % Nader voters there as well?

[--Pete]

Hi,

But I don't get the whole registering thing. I remember that in the US you need to register before being allowed to vote (which I always heard was a reason why many poor and uneducated people didn't bother), but does this cost money?

Nope. Pretty much all you need to do is go to any voter registration place (in a lot of states, that includes driver's license offices), show some ID (varies from place to place) and you're registered. You get a piece of paper as proof, and that you never need if you sign up for permanent absentee ballots.
And it pretty much only needs to be done once, unless you move to a different state.

We get a ballot send tho our house but of course there are the homeless people, or the ones that move house often who might run in to trouble here.

Basically the way it works here, too, in most places. Oregon, I believe, is the only state that has gone to all mail in ballots. But nearly every state, I think, has that as an option.

But still, if one person is able to vote more than one time, it is the system that does not work.

No system is perfect, and any system can be beaten. People make a big deal about what is a minor item. In theory, the election could swing on a few votes, but that's seldom the case in practice. Besides, the fraud level is probably right there with the honest error level.

The system should make sure somebody with a certain social security number can only vote once right?

In theory, no. The Social Security card is just a slip of heavy paper that any copy shop could duplicate. Further, it is *not* an official identification and it is actually illegal to use it as such, though that is just one of the many unenforced laws.

About my last remark....if these ACORN got 150.000 new voters to register and around 60 % were planning to vote for Obama it seems like hardly being worth the effort 8Assuming that McCain would get the other 40 %.....or is there 35 % Nader voters there as well?

Given the type of people that they're turning up, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them weren't still voting for Regan.

It is this type of thing (ACORN and the like, on both sides) that makes politics compare poorly to an outhouse in August.

--Pete

[eppie]

Hi,

It is this type of thing (ACORN and the like, on both sides) that makes politics compare poorly to an outhouse in August.

--Pete

Ok, sorry for being slow. But voting is in November. So how can we talk about fraud at this moment?

And what I meant with the social security number is not the use of it as identifiction but to use it in the voters registry. Any single legal american person has a social security number (to make it easier than having to compare 50.000 John Smiths). So if the administration is correct everybody can only vote once (you go to whereever it is that you vote, you so a valid ID and you vote, the person manning the voting station crosses out your social security number and that is it.....if later somebody arrives with the same social security number, you know that one of the two is lying/frauding and you can undertake action).
All this requires in my opinion is a big database with all legal american citizens that can be accessed by the people working in the vting stations.
So what am I missing here?

[Jester]

The issue of voter fraud in the US is, by and large, a bogeyman conjured up to justify vote suppression. This is not to say that it does not occur, but that its actual incidences are both rare and trivial, especially when compared with the enormous number of legitimate votes in play. Fair, non-partisan attempts to keep fraud out of the system are, of course, normal and expected. However, what is much more common is for one party or the other (Republicans tend to be much worse on this, but not alone) launch the "fraud" balloon, stir up public outrage, and then use that as a cover to sit at the polls and scrutinize the ID of every voter they think is probably from the other party. The idea is not to reject those votes in particular, but just to hold up the queue, so that, especially in poorer urban districts where lines are longer, people get demoralized or bored and simply go home. The numbers of people potentially disenfranchised by this kind of dirty operation dwarfs the number of fraudulent votes, and even worse, it often targets minority groups in a discriminatory way.

-Jester

[Sir_Die_alot]

On this list are no dead people or children because this list is made by an official government body.

Because government bodies can not be corrupt. I love liberals, such great ideas that would work perfect if people would just lose their self interest and cooperate!:lol:

(flame on, I just couldn't resist this jab :P)

[eppie]

Because government bodies can not be corrupt. I love liberals, such great ideas that would work perfect if people would just lose their self interest and cooperate!:lol:

(flame on, I just couldn't resist this jab :P)

The USA is 18th in the world corruption ranking so I would expect no dead people and children in the voting register.

http://www.transparency.org/news_room/in_f.../cpi_2008_table

But that is easy for me to see living in #1.:)

Anyway, a voting registry is not space science, it is something simple and fraud seems difficult. Paying people just before they cast their votes seems a possibility...but very hard to check, or do you think the ballots are checked by somebody before they are casted in the (open?) box?
Also fraud when counting (the 3 world way) is a possibility, but I guess counting is done by several people on one batch (people with different backgrounds).

[kandrathe]

Fraud only seems to matter when the elections are very close. In the past few election cycles for some precincts, a few thousand votes will make the difference. So, then it does matter that the votes of fictitious people, dead people, children, and convicts not be counted.

So, in making access to the polls as easy as walking up on the same day without ID, you will have much more fraud. I'm afraid that you will get caravans of people going from precinct to precinct voting multiple times.

[eppie]

So, in making access to the polls as easy as walking up on the same day without ID, you will have much more fraud. I'm afraid that you will get caravans of people going from precinct to precinct voting multiple times.

I am getting more and more confused. This going from precinct to precinct is actually possible??

[--Pete]

Hi,

I am getting more and more confused. This going from precinct to precinct is actually possible??

Not easy now, a voter's registration puts him in a specific district according to his home address. But if we did away with the registration, it would be more easily done. And districts are pretty small, since the general elections cover everything from federal, to state, county, down to school district.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Hi,
Not easy now, a voter's registration puts him in a specific district according to his home address. But if we did away with the registration, it would be more easily done. And districts are pretty small, since the general elections cover everything from federal, to state, county, down to school district.

--Pete

The problems I see are with absentee ballots, and same day registration. It takes time to determine if someone has voted already. The fraud here is where a group of people are registered for multiple addresses in different precincts. That was the case where 300 fictitious people were registered to be living at the strip club. They voted in that precinct, and in others as well.

[kandrathe]

The issue of voter fraud in the US is, by and large, a bogeyman conjured up to justify vote suppression. This is not to say that it does not occur, but that its actual incidences are both rare and trivial, especially when compared with the enormous number of legitimate votes in play. Fair, non-partisan attempts to keep fraud out of the system are, of course, normal and expected. However, what is much more common is for one party or the other (Republicans tend to be much worse on this, but not alone) launch the "fraud" balloon, stir up public outrage, and then use that as a cover to sit at the polls and scrutinize the ID of every voter they think is probably from the other party. The idea is not to reject those votes in particular, but just to hold up the queue, so that, especially in poorer urban districts where lines are longer, people get demoralized or bored and simply go home. The numbers of people potentially disenfranchised by this kind of dirty operation dwarfs the number of fraudulent votes, and even worse, it often targets minority groups in a discriminatory way.

-Jester

In Mn, we have the Motor/Voter system. Every adult is required by law to have either a MN driver's license or a MN ID Card on them in public (show me your papers). Every time you change addresses you need to fill out a card (or go online now days), which also has a voter registration component attached. When I go in to vote, the precinct I live in has a list in alphabetical order, and checks off my name/address. In most circumstances this should work for everyone.

I don't see how this is repressive (at least from the voting perspective).

[Hammerskjold]

but I am also pro-facts and this lady's ideas in her article was pretty devoid of factual links, with a lot of inuendo.

That was what I was thinking when I was reading her last couple of paragraphs.

Holliday interviewed another homeless man targeted by the registration drive who exulted that he was voting for Obama because "I want him to do his thang. You know, do his thug thizzle."

"Thug thizzle" is street slang for performing your trademark move. Obama and ACORN have practiced their thug thizzle together for years: Organizing an ever-expanding community of ineligible and marginal voters to expand the Democrat power base. Rules be damned.

Maybe it's just me, but it's kind of jarring and kind of a weak way IMO to segue and tie 'thug thizzle' into one neat little package. Why does it remind me of 2000's ' psst, McCain has a black bastard baby, pass it on..' attack? And ineligible is obviously one thing, but what exactly does she mean by 'marginal' voters?

Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but could it be that it's just code for something like this?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/pol...0,7370212.story

[Occhidiangela]

The issue of voter fraud in the US is, by and large, a bogeyman conjured up to justify vote suppression.

Nope. Try again.

Also look at it another way. If you hear about voter fraud, it may induce you to go and vote to try and offset it.

Or maybe not.

See also the law Bill Clinton signed in 1996. This was a catalyst. A good thing has recently happened, the Supreme Court has upheld some states' requirements for a picture ID, with a liberal judge writing the opinion.

The 2000 election exposed a lot of shortcomings in the voting processes, and it irks me that less has been done to remedy more of them. My largest irritation is the short attention span requirement. I see no reason that the results have to be reported before they are all in.

I can wait for someone to count all of the votes.

[Chesspiece_face]

As most of you probbably know, I am pro-McCain, but I am also pro-facts and this lady's ideas in her article was pretty devoid of factual links, with a lot of inuendo.

That's what you get with the New York Post.

Doing their best to out-trash the washington times since 1993!

[Chesspiece_face]

Nope. Try again.

Also look at it another way. If you hear about voter fraud, it may induce you to go and vote to try and offset it.

Or maybe not.

See also the law Bill Clinton signed in 1996. This was a catalyst. A good thing has recently happened, the Supreme Court has upheld some states' requirements for a picture ID, with a liberal judge writing the opinion.

The 2000 election exposed a lot of shortcomings in the voting processes, and it irks me that less has been done to remedy more of them. My largest irritation is the short attention span requirement. I see no reason that the results have to be reported before they are all in.

I can wait for someone to count all of the votes.

Voter fraud is a real issue but Jester isn't incorrect. This whole ACORN thing didn't pop up until right after the NYTimes story about the 8 battleground states which were removing people from the voting rolls in violation of federal law. The lack of factual links that MEAT mentions above as well as the innuendo allows people to conflate the two issues and leave with the impression that they are related and that the people removed from the rolls were part of the ACORN issue.

Edit: it's also notable that this whole ACORN issue was started from investigations by the RNC. not an unbiased organization.

Edit again: To clarify: The RNC investigations started nearly 3 weeks ago. The big media hub-bub didn't happen till after the NYTimes story about voter rolls being purged.