Obama - Democrats - voter registration fraud?,,,,,

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Cuyahoga County officials have accused ACORN, the GOTV organization employed by Barack Obama’s campaign, of voter registration fraud — again. The Board of Elections has begun a criminal investigation into the submission of fraudulent registration cards, with an eye to prosecuting ACORN officials:

Cuyahoga board probes ACORN voter registration drive

Posted by Joe Guillen August 27, 2008 23:55PM

Categories: Election, News Impact, Open

CLEVELAND -- A national organization that conducts voter registration drives for low-income people has curtailed its push in Cuyahoga County after the Board of Elections accused its workers of submitting fraudulent registration cards.

The board is investigating the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Results of the inquiry could be turned over to the county prosecutor.

Board employees said ACORN workers often handed in the same name on a number of voter registration cards, but showing that person living at different addresses. Other times, cards had the same name listed, but a different date of birth. Still another sign of possible fraud showed a number of people living at an address that turned out to be a restaurant.

"I'm obviously very concerned," Board Chairman Jeff Hastings said. "This goes to the essence of our democracy."

ACORN had a part-time staff of 30 who worked five days a week to find unregistered people. The workers made $8 an hour and were required to sign up 20 voters in each five-hour shift.

The elections board's registration department said in a report that ACORN's quota contributed to the possible fraud.

ACORN stopped the registration efforts of the part-timers on Aug. 15. Three salaried employees continue the drive to sign up voters.

Kristopher Harsh, head organizer for the agency's Cleveland office, said it is unlikely a full-fledged movement will resume before the Nov. 4 election.

ACORN has submitted about 75,000 voter registration cards to the Cuyahoga board this year.

Board employees are unsure how many of the cards are fraudulent. But the voter registration department received so many suspicious cards that it began compiling a binder with evidence. The binder grew to be an inch-thick.

At its Tuesday meeting, the elections board cancelled five fraudulent registrations submitted by ACORN workers. The cases involved already-registered voters who alerted the board after being notified by mail that their registration records had been updated.

Fraudulent cards not caught by the board should not harm the November election, said Betty Grant Edwards, manager of the board's registration department. She said information on registration cards must match required identification shown at the polls. If the facts do not match, a voter receives a provisional ballot and the information is checked before the vote is counted.

ACORN is a national organization that promotes social justice for low and moderate-income families. It is among many groups, some politically affiliated, that register voters.

In August 2006, elections boards in Franklin and Summit counties investigated potentially bogus registration cards submitted by ACORN. The Franklin board turned over 500 cards to its county prosecutor, but the board's Deputy Director Matthew Damschroder said the prosecutor could not file charges because it was impossible to nail down who filled out the fake cards.

ACORN's national voter registration director, Kimberly Olsen, said Cleveland voter registration efforts have been wildly successful.

"We hit our goals early, registering 86,000 people in Cleveland proper," Olsen said Wednesday in a written statement.

Elections board member Eben "Sandy" McNair said it was doubtful the agency deliberately defrauded voters.

"You had a badly run operation that was not paying sufficient attention," he said.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/08/cu...s_voter_re.html

Obama's company

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

The never-ending audacity of Sen. Barack Obama is a continuing reminder that a man is known by the company he keeps.

The latest matter involves Mr. Obama's presidential campaign paying more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the scandal-ridden, leftist Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for services the campaign now says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports.

The ACORN subsidiary, Citizens Services Inc., did "get-out-the-vote" work instead of the polling, advance work and major event staging the Obama campaign had first stated in its Federal Election Commission finance report during the primary.

This is the same ACORN tainted by indictments alleging voter fraud in various parts of the United States. Given Obama's long, deep ties with the radical reverends, unapologetic bomb-throwers and unscrupulous ward-heelers in his home base of Chicago, he might not have seen anything wrong with being in bed with ACORN.

The public would be wise to heed the words of Jim Terry, spokesman for the libertarian-leaning Consumers Rights League in Washington, D.C. It looks as if ACORN is continuing to use its "convoluted Enron-style accounting" for Obama's political gain, Mr. Terry says.

The ACORN discrepancy is another reminder that Obama seems to be most comfortable with left-wing nuts.

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The ACORN Obama Knows

by Michelle Malkin

If you don't know what ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is all about, you better bone up. This left-wing group takes in 40 percent of its revenues from American taxpayers -- you and me -- and has leveraged nearly four decades of government subsidies to fund affiliates that promote the welfare state and undermine capitalism and self-reliance, some of which have been implicated in perpetuating illegal immigration and encouraging voter fraud. A new whistleblower report from the Consumer Rights League claims that Chicago-based ACORN has commingled public tax dollars with political projects.

Who in Washington will fight to ensure that your money isn't being spent on these radical activities?

Don't bother asking Barack Obama. He cut his ideological teeth working with ACORN as a "community organizer" and legal representative. Naturally, ACORN's political action committee has warmly endorsed his presidential candidacy. ACORN head Maude Hurd gushes that Obama is the candidate who "best understands and can affect change on the issues ACORN cares about" -- like ensuring their massive pipeline to your hard-earned money. Let's take a closer look at the ACORN Obama knows.

Last July, ACORN settled the largest case of voter fraud in the history of Washington State. Seven ACORN workers had submitted nearly 2,000 bogus voter registration forms. According to case records, they flipped through phone books for names to use on the forms, including "Leon Spinks," "Frekkie Magoal" and "Fruto Boy Crispila." Three ACORN election hoaxers pleaded guilty in October. A King County prosecutor called ACORN's criminal sabotage "an act of vandalism upon the voter rolls."

The group's vandalism on electoral integrity is systemic. ACORN has been implicated in similar voter fraud schemes in Missouri, Ohio and at least 12 other states. The Wall Street Journal noted: "In Ohio in 2004, a worker for one affiliate was given crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent registrations that included underage voters, dead voters and pillars of the community named Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Jive Turkey. During a congressional hearing in Ohio in the aftermath of the 2004 election, officials from several counties in the state explained ACORN's practice of dumping thousands of registration forms in their lap on the submission deadline, even though the forms had been collected months earlier."

In March, Philadelphia elections officials accused the nonprofit advocacy group of filing fraudulent voter registrations in advance of the April 22nd Pennsylvania primary. The charges have been forwarded to the city district attorney's office.

Under the guise of "consumer advocacy," ACORN has received money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD funds hundreds, if not thousands, of left-wing "anti-poverty" groups across the country led by ACORN. Last October, HUD announced more than $44 million in new housing counseling grants to over 400 state and local efforts. The White House has increased funding for housing counseling by 150 percent since taking office in 2001, despite the role most of these recipients play as activist satellites of the Democratic Party. The AARP scored nearly $400,000 for training; the National Council of La Raza ("The Race") scooped up more than $1.3 million; the National Urban League raked in nearly $1 million; and the ACORN Housing Corporation received more than $1.6 million.

As the Consumer Rights League points out in its new expose, the ACORN Housing Corporation has worked to obtain mortgages for illegal aliens in partnership with Citibank. It relies on undocumented income, "under the table" money, which may not be reported to the Internal Revenue Service. Moreover, the group's "financial justice" operations attack lenders for "exotic" loans, while recommending 10-year interest-only loans (which deny equity to the buyer) and risky reverse mortgages. Whistleblower documents reveal internal discussions among the group that blur the lines between its tax-exempt housing work and its aggressive electioneering activities. The group appears to shake down corporate interests with relentless PR attacks, and then enters "no lobby" agreements with targeted corporations after receiving payment.

Republicans have largely looked the other way as ACORN has expanded its government-funded empire. But finally, a few conservative voices in Congress have called for investigation of the group's apparent extortion schemes. This week, GOP Reps. Tom Feeney, Jeb Hensarling and Ed Royce called on Democrat Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, to convene a hearing to probe potential illegalities and abuse of taxpayer funds by ACORN's management and minions alike.

Where does the candidate of Hope and Change -- the candidate of Reform and New Politics -- stand on the issue? Barack Obama, ACORN's senator, is for more of the same old, same old subsidizing of far-left politics in the name of fighting for the poor while enriching ideological cronies. It's the Chicago way.

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In 12 states, including Missouri, Washington, and Ohio, ACORN’s workers have allegedly forged voter registration applications and signatures on petitions for ballot initiatives.

ACORN’s long record of shady operations has been long known. Why would a supposed reformer hire ACORN as a partner for a campaign that promises to end business as usual? As the song goes, you can tell a a man who boozes by the company he chooses — and you can tell volumes about a politician comfortable with the likes of ACORN, Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, and William Ayers.

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Democrats and ACORN. The question should be:

When does this become organized crime?