Liberal-Leaning ACORN Probed
FDLE said one of the voter registration groups it is investigating is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a liberal-leaning advocacy group known as ACORN. The group also is sponsoring the ballot measure to boost Florida's minimum wage.
Faith Gay, attorney for ACORN, said the state investigation is based on allegations made by a disgruntled former employee. She said the group is cooperating fully with investigators.
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Illegal immigrants are registering to vote using false documents at driver’s license offices, said Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson and other critics. And North Carolina is investigating two groups that might have falsely registered new voters, including a 15-year-old Wake County boy.
North Carolina officials also are investigating two groups that appear to have submitted fake voter registration cards. An advocacy group known as ACORN, for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has had trouble across the country because it pays workers to register voters, and some have decided to pad their work.
The group’s chief organizer in Charlotte discovered a few weeks ago that one worker had faked about 70 registrations. The employee was fired and the information turned over to the state board, which is investigating.
A similar problem with a consumer-interest group in Wake County, where the 15-year-old boy was among those signed up to vote, was also turned over to state officials.
officials with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on Thursday announced they were investigating groups responsible for signing up new voters -- including the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
The national organization, which has targeted registering minority, poor and moderate-income voters, claims to have helped more than 50,000 voters to register in Broward this year. The group, which claims to be non-partisan, reported signing up 1 million new voters across the country as of late September.
FDLE agents for weeks have heard complaints throughout the state accusing organization members of suppressing Republican voter registration forms and illegally signing voter-registration applications instead of having the would-be voter do so.