Tuesday Links

Working Families Party shares an office with ACORN in Brooklyn.
ACORN has been exposed for widespread voter fraud throughout the United States.
Do you think the people sharing the same office might be sharing information and tactics and ideological perspectives as far as voter registration is concerned?

These outfits will continue to be exposed for undermining the legitimate voter process, it's as simple as that.
As a nation we should have ZERO tolerance for these type of third world tactics.

And before you call me a reactionary, I would say the same if the conservative or republican party were up to these sorts of tricks.

Posted by: Legion at October 27, 2009 10:37 AM

pete,
If it helps you sleep at night. we are all deranged, right-wing loons who have lost the ability to reason and formulate an opinion based on fact and experience.

...If however, you are interested in exposing fraud left and right. you will read the details objectively and realize that some organizations are actually prone to play the system and circumvent voter laws.
"resting your case" is really just another way of allowing your subconscious/ego to overrule your superego or thinking brain. It is a intellectually dishonest.

Posted by: Legion at October 27, 2009 11:26 AM

pete;
ACORN Workers Indicted For Alleged Voter Fraud
POSTED: 5:02 pm CST November 1, 2006
UPDATED: 10:25 pm CST November 1, 2006

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Four people have been indicted on charges of voter fraud in Kansas City, officials said Wednesday.

Investigators said questionable registration forms for new voters were collected by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a group that works to improve minority and low-income communities.

The four indicted -- Kwaim A. Stenson, Dale D. Franklin, Stephanie L. Davis and Brian Gardner -- were employed by ACORN as registration recruiters. They were each charged with two counts.

Federal indictments allege the four turned in false voter registration applications. Prosecutors said the indictments are part of a national investigation.

Posted by: Legion at October 27, 2009 11:48 AM

pete, here's another case;

By Matthew Vadum on 6.4.09 @ 7:12PM

Darnell Nash, a voter in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, has been indicted by a grand jury for, among other things, illegal voting.

Nash was registered to vote by ACORN.

Ryan Miday, spokesman for Cuyahoga County, Ohio Prosecutor Bill Mason, a Democrat, just spoke with me.

Miday said an "investigation is continuing into activities by ACORN. Darnell Nash is the first we've charged in this ongoing investigation."

"ACORN workers approached him to fill out voter registration cards and he did so on nine different occasions using different names and addresses, then he actually registered and voted on Sept. 30 and voted with a different address and the address was an address here in the Cleveland area in a suburb called Shaker Heights."

Miday said that the Shaker Heights address is important because the person who actually lives there alerted the authorities after multiple registration acknowledgement documents came in the mail. Nash's vote was then flagged and Nash came to the attention of the board of elections. It held an administrative board hearing and summoned Nash to appear but he failed to show up for the hearing.

Posted by: Legion at October 27, 2009 11:52 AM

bxgrl,
are you a lawyer by any chance? lol

Posted by: Legion at October 27, 2009 11:54 AM

benson,
true, no wonder I get so much candy on halloween. my looney tunes costume is a hit on that one day of the year.
;)

Posted by: Legion at October 27, 2009 12:06 PM

pete, here's one from the NYTimes.
at some point, you have to go by the old adage, where's there's smoke there's fire.

By STEVE FRIESS
Published: May 5, 2009
LAS VEGAS — A prominent antipoverty organization that drew criticism from Republicans during last year’s presidential race was charged by Nevada officials Monday with engaging in voter registration fraud.

Two former leaders of the group’s Nevada branch were also charged in connection with the submission of thousands of bogus voter registration forms.

The organization, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, is accused of paying canvassers only if they registered at least 20 voters per shift and providing bonuses of $5 for registering more than 21.

Under Nevada law, it is illegal to attach incentives to such work, in part because it encourages canvassers to submit fraudulent forms, Secretary of State Ross Miller said.

Acorn submitted 91,002 completed forms in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, of which 23,186 turned out to be valid new voters who voted in November, according to data provided by Mr. Miller’s office.

Mr. Miller investigated Acorn at the behest of the Clark County registrar of voters, Larry Lomax, who noted a high number of forms turned in featuring the names of famous football players and cartoon characters

Posted by: Legion at October 27, 2009 12:55 PM

MM,

At some point, the overwhelming weight of evidence must be acknowledged. Not even poverty is an excuse. Read on please.

AR 1998 A contractor with ACORN-affiliated Project Vote was arrested for falsifying about 400 voter registration cards.
CO 2005 Two ex-ACORN employees were convicted in Denver of perjury for submitting false voter registrations.
2004 An ACORN employee admitted to forging signatures and registering three of her friends to vote 40 times.
CT 2008 The New York Post reported that ACORN submitted a voter registration card for a 7-year-old Bridgeport girl. Another 8,000 cards from the same city will be scrutinized for possible fraud.
FL 2009 In September, 11 ACORN workers were accused of forging voter registration applications in Miami-Dade County during the last election. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the state attorney’s office scoured hundreds of suspicious applications provided by ACORN and found 197 of 260 contained personal ID information that did not match any living person.
2008 Election officials in Brevard County have given prosecutors more than 23 suspect registrations from ACORN. The state's Division of Elections is also investigating complaints in Orange and Broward Counties.
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.
IN 2008 Election officials in Indiana have thrown out more than 4,000 ACORN-submitted voter registrations after finding they had identical handwriting and included the names of many deceased Indianans, and even the name of a fast food restaurant.
MI 2008 Clerks in Detroit found a "sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent [voter] applications" from the Michigan branch of ACORN. Those applications have been turned over to the U.S. Attorney's office for investigation.
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 2008 Nearly 400 ACORN-submitted registrations in Kansas City have been rejected due to duplication or fake information.
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.
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.
NC 2008 County elections officials have sent suspicious voter registration applications to the state Board of Elections. Many of the applications had similar or identical names, but with different addresses or dates of birth.
2004 North Carolina officials investigated ACORN for submitting fake voter registration cards.
NM 2008 Prosecutors are investigating more than 1,100 ACORN-submitted voter registration cards after a county clerk found them to be fraudulent. Many of the cards included duplicate names and slightly altered personal information.
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.
NV 2009 Nevada authorities indicted ACORN on 26 counts of voter registration fraud and 13 counts of illegally compensating canvassers. ACORN provided a bonus compensation program called “Blackjack” or “21+” for any canvasser who registered more than 20 voters per shift, which is illegal under Nevada law.
2008 Nevada state authorities raided ACORN's Las Vegas headquarters as part of a task force investigation of election fraud. Fraudulent registrations included players from the Dallas Cowboys.
OH 2008 ACORN activists gave Ohio residents cash and cigarettes in exchange for filling out voter registration card, according to the New York Post. Some voters claim to have registered dozens of times, and one man says he signed up on 72 cards.
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.
PA 2009 Seven ACORN workers in the Pittsburgh area were indicted for submitting falsified voter registration forms. Six of the seven were also indicted for registering voters under an illegal quota system.
2008 State election officials have thrown out 57,435 voter registrations, the majority of which were submitted by ACORN. The registrations were thrown out after officials found "clearly fraudulent" signatures, vacant lots listed as addresses, and other signs of fraud.
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

Posted by: Legion at October 27, 2009 3:13 PM

bxgrl,
I have no doubt that various unsrupulous GOP party affiliates have participated in undermining tactics and if there is evidence of widespread fraud, by all means, expose it.
My voter fraud comments ,thus far, have been directed at ACORN/WFP because they are the ones being questioned in this regard, repeatedly over the past few years.
That being said, I am a big supporter of a national ID card, if only for the sake of national security. Arguments of right to privacy, are moot to me because, as I've stated in the past; privacy is an illusion in this computer age where every cellphone has a camera and every camera is connected to the internet. Wait until the already mandated Electronic Medical Record becomes an everyday reality.
If everyone has a national ID, we can account for everyone's vote and the possibility of fraud declines in direct proportion to the power of the numbers crunching supercomputer that will tally the vote.

Posted by: Legion at October 27, 2009 4:14 PM

MM and Pete,

Reading through the list, you will find that there were no less than 3 convictions and two admissions of guilt, the rest consisted of indictments which indicate enough evidence for a grand jury and prosecutor to consider illegal. It's not my fault justice is slow, give it a couple of years and then see how many of those indictments turn to convictions, my guess would be at least half.
You will also notice that the list spans the entire nation, adding credence to my claim of widespread voter fraud and a pattern of election related illegality. How much evidence can you read through before you admit to yourself that there may be something to this claim? You know for a fact, that if this was a list of allegations against some Rush Limbaugh PAC, you would conclude that the PAC was rife with a systematic/institutional fraud. Be honest with yourselves. If this was a list of "accusations" against your neighbor for instances of say racism, you would not be trusting your neighbor.
Next, Pete suggests that voter "suppression" leads to better results for Democrats. First off, I do not consider asking someone to produce a valid ID, to be suppression. If you cannot get your life together enough to have a valid ID or some proof of residence/citizenship, why should you have a vote? Sorry, but you have to set the bar at some level. We ask people to produce an ID to ride a plane or to enter a bar or to see a doctor, why is it too much to ask for an ID to vote for goodness sakes?
Second, a recent Pew or Zogby poll revealed that an overwhelmingly larger percentage of Americans identified themselves as conservatives as opposed to liberals (40% vs. 20% across all 50 states), why would conservatives need to suppress anyone to do well? Remember that famous map from 2006 which showed the entire country awash in red with only three small areas of blue in LA, Chicago and NYC, that was the vote broken down by county. The Zogby poll reveals what everyone already knows, the 40% undecided are the ones determining the result. It is patently impossible to suppress the undecided because they are not identified as a single voter block, independents, unaffiliated, democrats, republicans or first time voters.
Finally, the implication that Republicans are attempting to mitigate the increased participation by minorities is false. We just don't believe in pandering to groups just to get the vote. You may be surprised to learn that there are many, many republican african americans, hispanic americans, asian americans and women to mention a few groups. I myself am hispanic and can honestly say that nobody in my family has ever been "suppressed" or "harassed" or blocked from voting in any way. Then again, we always followed the simple rules for voting and we never voted more than once in any election.

Posted by: Legion at October 27, 2009 9:25 PM