Free Republic

To purge or not to purge: Controversy brews over voter rolls Controversy brews over process striking registered voters off rollsBy Michael Kelley (Contact), Memphis Commercial Appeal Sunday, September 20, 2009 The Republican-controlled Shelby County Election Commission has been aggressively purging the voter registration roll this year following a registration binge by Democrats last fall. If there is any relationship it's tenuous, though, and the commission has been carefully following federal law as it has pared the list of Shelby County voters to about 600,000.****Snip****Voters who identify themselves as white comprise 53 percent of those purged this year, while they make...

The Working Families Party and local Democratic Party Officials are at the center of a massive voter fraud scandal in Troy, NY. According to the Times Union: Dozens of forged and fraudulent absentee ballots from people registered to vote on the Working Families Party line were filed in the Sept. 15 primary elections in Troy. Documents at the county Board of Elections show the fraudulent ballots were handled by or prepared on behalf of various elected officials and leaders and operatives for the Democratic and Working Families parties. There may be as many as 50 absentee ballots that were forged,...

Runner sues Attorney General over ballot wording SACRAMENTO • State Sen. George Runner is suing California Attorney General Jerry Brown for crafting what Runner calls an “overtly biased” summary of a ballot measure the senator created to prevent voter fraud. “I believe he has misrepresented what this initiative does,” said Runner, R-Lancaster, in an interview Monday. “That’s a tremendous disservice to the citizens of California.” Earlier this year Runner submitted ballot measure Vote SAFE, which would require voters to present photo identification at the polls, allow county Registrar of Voters additional time to count military votes and protect the identity...

Chris Edwards, the former Las Vegas Director for ACORN has "flipped" for the Nevada AG's prosecution of ACORN in voter fraud case. Matthew Vadum of Capital Resource Center claims the Nevada AG has possession of ACORN Resource Manual which includes a registration incentive scheme called, "21" that paid cash bonuses.FOX News video of interview here and at link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFaIeMogWa4

It has been two weeks since the shocking undercover video work of James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles was released to the world. Those videos reveal beyond any shadow of a doubt that ACORN is the very definition of a "corrupt organization." Furthermore, they demonstrated clearly that ACORN officials in several cities are more than willing to get involved in the most heinous kind of criminal activity – up to and including murder and white slavery rings involving the exploitation of helpless underage foreign minors. Nevertheless, since the astonishing sting operations were made public, no charges have been filed against ACORN,...

About 60 members and supporters of the community-action group ACORN gathered at a North Philadelphia church yesterday to sing the praises of the beleaguered organization. "There are two ACORNs out there," said Ian Phillips, ACORN's Pennsylvania legislative director and one of the organizers of the event. "We wanted to talk about the ACORN that people who live in the community know." The 90-minute session, at the House of Prayer Episcopal Church on Limekiln Pike, was part pep rally, part revival meeting. Speakers included State Rep. Mark Cohen, retired city labor leader Tom Cronin, city Consumer Affairs Director Lance Haver, and...

News just on FOX: An Acorn Field Director has "flipped", is now working with Nevada Attorney General on case against ACORN. Nevada Acorn offices raided, field manuals on how to commit Voter Registration Fraud seized.

Mark Fitzgibbons, President of Corporate and Legal Affairs of American Target Advertising, Inc., Manassas, Virginia, issued the following statement regarding the failure of state attorneys general to take action against ACORN: "Despite years of warning signs about voter fraud, embezzlement and other potentially criminal behavior by and within the Association for Community Organizing and Reform Now (ACORN), only a handful of state attorneys general apparently didn't need to be embarrassed by recent alternative media reporting and videos before taking some action against ACORN. Most state attorneys general have sat by idly, perhaps for political reasons with a trail quite probably...

In a post this morning, we reported testimony tying ACORN with President Obama's Election Committee. Moncrief also testified that, in November 2007, she was given a massive database of Barack Obama donors who had already reached the maximum that they are allowed to give to the Democratic presidential nominee. Her task was to cull it for potential donors who, though prohibited from giving any more to Obama, could give to ACORN. Moncrief said that she received the database from her supervisor and that the person insisted the Obama campaign had provided it. Big Government has found another Connection

During the last two weeks much of America has been mesmerized by the release of "prostitution sting" videos (except apparently for the White House and Much of the mainstream media). Andrew Breitbart new website, Big Government has done a fantastic job raising questions about the scandal-ridden community organization. The one danger is that people may now think that the Issue with ACORN is a few low-level bad eggs in a couple of offices. ACORN is a tangled web that needs to be thoroughly investigated and revealed for what it is, a criminal organization using the money of the United States...

Perhaps we shouldn't have been completely surprised by the videos we've seen of ACORN workers offering assistance to prostitution rings. I mean, there was Cincinnati . . . Shari Bell, 41, of Walnut Hills was arrested Wednesday night by Cincinnati police, reported WCPO, NewsChannel5's Cincinnati sister station. Bell allegedly approached an undercover officer's car in Evanston and offered him sex for money. Police also said they found a crack pipe in Bell's coat pocket. Bell told police she works for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now at the time of her arrest. And then there was Cleveland: An...

October 20, 2008 By Kyle-Anne Shiver "A People's Organization is dedicated to an eternal war...A war is not an intellectual debate, and in the war against social evils there are no rules of fair play." - Saul Alinsky; Reveille for Radicals; p. 133 Rules? What rules? Laws? What laws? Clearly, Alinsky's acolytes take him at his word. When one is fighting a war "against social evils," one is above the law. Rules and laws are for the other people. I'm stunned by the irony here. For the past eight years, Americans have been bombarded nearly nonstop by cries of "Bush...

Michigan's attorney general is charging a former employee of a community organizing group with forgery after he says the man falsely submitted six voter registration forms. He worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

ACORN whistleblower faces $5 million lawsuit Is woman who exposed voter fraud now fighting retaliation attack? Project Vote, an affiliate of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which became entangled in charges of voter fraud and "tainting" the presidential election, is suing a former employee who testified against ACORN last year to the tune of $5 million. ACORN became a hot-button issue in the 2008 presidential race because of Barack Obama's ties to the group as well as its own admission that more than 400,000 of the 1.3 million voter registrations it claims to have collected were not...

Community-organizing group Acorn said Thursday it was considering quitting its voter-registration work amid a growing political storm over its activities, a move that could hurt Democrats at the polls.

Barack Obama’s dear friends at ACORN are busy trying to lie, cheat, and steal their way to victory in November. The latest ACORN Watch entry comes to you from the battleground state of New Mexico, where election officials have notified prosecutors of an estimated 1,100 possibly fraudulent voter registration cards. The Bernalillo County clerk has notified prosecutors that some 1,100 possibly fraudulent voter registration cards have been turned in to her office. Some cards in New Mexico’s most populous county have the same name as a voter who’s already registered, but carry a different birth date or Social Security number;...

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled that Indiana's voter identification law is unconstitutional. 6News is looking through the 29-page ruling now and will provide details from it as soon as possible. The decision comes after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state's voter ID law in 2008, a week before the presidential primary, in a splintered 6-3 ruling. Backers of the law, which requires a voter to present a photo identification to cast a ballot, said it curbs voter fraud. Those against the law contend that it keeps poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. The...

Over the weekend the White House announced the Census Department is severing all ties with ACORN, the discredited organization that is under investigation for voter fraud in 14 states and recently the subject of a media sting by Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government blog and reported by Glenn Beck. Additionally The Senate has voted to drop all funding to ACORN.... It all seems too good to be true. And when it comes to Democrats reaching across the aisle, it probably is. You have to understand ACORN is where President Obama got his start. He defended them in court. He is tied...

In his book, Joys of Yiddish Leo Rosten defined Chutzpah as "A boy, having just been convicted of murdering his parents, begs the judge for leniency because he is an orphan. A modern example may be ACORN, the corrupt community organizing group. Remember those 14 states where ACORN is being investigated for voter fraud, that did not deter the government from giving the community organizing group. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) called for a probe of the Democrat's favorite voting fraud group. Admittedly his call for an investigation was shocking because of the fraud testimony indicated a relationship with the Obama...

Group once linked to Barack Obama taped giving advice to 'brothel owners'By Toby Harnden in Washington Published: 9:19PM BST 13 Sep 2009 Acorn employees were taped giving advice on tax avoidance and employment of 13-year-old illegal immigrants to Right-wing activists posing as brothel owners. "It is clear that Acorn's affiliation with the 2010 census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, negatively impacting 2010 census efforts," said Robert Groves, the census director. Acorn - the Association of Community Organisations for Reform...

Link only, cannot be posted due to copyright issues: http://www.examiner.com/x-2684-Law-Enforcement-Examiner~y2009m8d16-ACORN-conspiracy-against-gun-owners-discovered

Last month, the Obama administration’s decision to dismiss a default judgment against the New Black Panther Party in a clear case of voter intimidation (caught on videotape and circulated on the internet) drew scrutiny from Congress and from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. That scrutiny has now resulted in one announced investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and set the stage for a battle between the administration and the Commission. In June, the Commission sent a letter of inquiry to the Justice Department demanding an explanation for the dismissal of the case against all but one...

MIAMI — Armed with a tip from the grassroots group ACORN about its own workers, authorities on Wednesday began arresting 11 people suspected of falsifying hundreds of voter applications during a registration drive last year. ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has long been accused by Republican and conservative activists — fed by talk-radio hosts — of fraudulently registering voters. But Miami-Dade prosecutors gave credit to the group for coming forward and ACORN officials said they felt vindicated. "It shows that we take the integrity of our voter registration work with the utmost seriousness,"...

ACORN has erected an elaborate web of front organizations that allow it to hide its influence and reach. I did a quick search of the internet using the New Orleans address of ACORN. Guess what I found? Almost three hundred organizations connected to ACORN. Well, I would like you to look at the following list of ACORN related organizations that share the same address as ACORN. TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY FOUR names. Got that? This is a tangled web that defies the ability of any one person or organization to figure out who is working for whom. Carnival workers use...

Obama and ACORN: Barack Obama has publicly denied ever working for ACORN in his career as a “community organizer.” In 1992 Obama got one of his first “community organizing” jobs with an outfit called “Project Vote” as its state organizer for Illinois: “Sneed hears a massive voter registration drive on the South and West sides is being conducted by Gary Gardner, president of Soft Sheen products, Joe Gardner, former strategist for Mayor Harold Washington, and Barack Obama, a state director of Project Vote, a national voter registration group.” – Chicago Sun Times, August 2, 1992 So what was “Project Vote”...

In the parallel universe occupied by many left-of-center Americans, the increasingly controversial Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is a high-minded poor people’s group similar to crusading civil rights groups of the 1960s. They believe ACORN is a public-spirited organization that registers the poor to vote and encourages citizen involvement in morally uplifting projects and community development. They believe it spurs production of affordable housing, protects tenants’ rights, keeps unjustly exploited borrowers in their homes and rages against predatory lenders. They believe it fights for the rights of workers, immigrants and utility ratepayers. But it does so much...

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has begun an inquiry into the dismissal in May of a civil complaint against the New Black Panther Party and two of its members who disrupted a Philadelphia polling place during last year's presidential elections. The inquiry was disclosed in an Aug. 28 letter to Rep. Lamar Smith, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee who first raised questions about the case's dismissal and asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., to make available the head of the department's Voting Section for a closed-door briefing about the decision. In the letter, Mary Patrice...

According to sources, Rep. Frank Wolf R.Va. and Rep. Lamar Smith R-Tx received a letter today from the Dept. of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility (DOJ) about the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense ( NBP), which was mysteriously dismissed by the DOJ after President Obama took office. Questions about this unusual dismissal have been asked by Messrs. Wolf ...

"Names were filled out on the registration forms that were not actual voters," said Ed Griffith, a spokesperson for the state attorney's office. Griffith said the names included people who were already registered voters, fictitious names, and the name of the late actor Paul Newman, who died in Sept. 2008. Griffith said the workers being sought were hired to register voters by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. He said ACORN alerted the state attorney's office after it reviewed hundreds of voter registration cards it suspected were fraudulent. Griffith said that none of the names in...

Arrest warrants have been issued in Miami for 11 people suspected of falsifying information on hundreds of voter registration cards last year. The FBI and state authorities were making arrests Wednesday. The workers being sought were hired to register voters by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. Prosecutors say they were first notified by ACORN about problems with workers in June 2008. Republicans and conservative activists have accused ACORN of fraud in voter registration drives around the country. ACORN officials say the Florida case proves the organization is committed to an honest process. The case involved...

MIAMI - Eleven people hired by the community organization ACORN to register potential voters in Miami-Dade County before last year's presidential election are accused of falsifying hundreds of voter registration cards. The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office issued arrest warrants for each of the 11 suspects, all of whom worked for the local chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, commonly known as ACORN

South Phila. Native: ‘I Am A Believer In The Voting Rights Act’ Rep. Frank Wolf R- Va., told The Bulletin in an exclusive interview, that he fully intends to learn why Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department voluntarily dismissed a lawsuit — for which they already obtained a judgment — against two members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense for violation of the Voting Rights Act that occurred last Election Day in North Philadelphia. Mr. Wolf is the ranking member of the House subcommittee, which has jurisdiction of the Dept. of Justice (DOJ). He is an unapologetic staunch...

While ACORN retreats across the nation, an upcoming voter registration fraud trial may reveal embarrassing information that hinders the ability of the embattled radical activist group to function. The testimony will come as soon as next month from former ACORN Las Vegas field director Christopher Edwards. Charged with election fraud by Nevada's Democratic attorney general, he cut a deal last week with prosecutors and has pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters. ACORN allegedly enforced voter registration quotas with its employees and offered bonuses for extra registrations. Nevada law forbids...

KABUL – The outcry over alleged vote fraud in Afghanistan's election escalated Sunday, with President Hamid Karzai's chief opponent charging that turnout figures were padded and the chief fraud investigator saying some of the allegations were serious enough to influence the outcome if true. The controversy threatens to discredit an election that the Obama administration considers a key step in a new strategy to turn back the Taliban insurgency. It could also delay formation of a new government and fuel growing doubts in the United States about whether its worth continuing to fight the war in Afghanistan.

A former Las Vegas director for the political advocacy group ACORN has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge and agreed to testify against the group and another employee. Chief Deputy Nevada Attorney General Conrad Hafen said Wednesday that Christopher Edwards' plea deal strengthens a felony case against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and Amy Busefink, a former regional voter registration director. They're accused of illegally paying canvassers to register voters during last year's presidential campaign. Edwards pleaded guilty this week to two counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters. He is...

President Obama's Justice Department continues to stonewall inquiries about why it dropped a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. The episode—which Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the left-wing Village Voice, calls "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen"—began on Election Day 2008. Mr. Bull and others witnessed two Black Panthers in paramilitary garb at a polling place near downtown Philadelphia. (Some of this behavior is on YouTube.) ... The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted on Aug. 7 to send a letter to Justice expanding its own investigation and...

Why did the Justice Department dismiss such a clear case of voter intimidation? President Obama's Justice Department continues to stonewall inquiries about why it dropped a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. The episode—which Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the left-wing Village Voice, calls "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen"—began on Election Day 2008. Mr. Bull and others witnessed two Black Panthers in paramilitary garb at a polling place near downtown Philadelphia. (Some of this behavior is on YouTube.) One of them, they say, brandished a nightstick at...

This past May charges of voter fraud were brought up against the Nevada arm of the President's favorite community organizers, ACORN. The state alleged that ACORN had policies requiring employees in Vegas to sign up 20 new voters a day or be fired. And, if you turn in 21 or more new registrations, you get a blackjack and a bonus of $5 per shift (hey it is Vegas). It's against the law in Nevada to pay individual registrants to register people based on the total number of people that you've registered. That's a felony in Nevada. Nevada officials just announced...

Voter Fraud: Republican leaders want to defund and criminally investigate ACORN. Why should taxpayer dollars fund a "nonpartisan" organization that proclaims "Obama needs ACORN, and we need Obama."That the greatest attempt at voter fraud in the nation's history is being funded in large part at taxpayer's expense is more than a bit ironic. House Minority Leader John Boehner wants it stopped and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, wants the group allegedly behind the fraud, ACORN, criminally investigated and prosecuted. ACORN calls itself a "nonpartisan" group seeking to register minorities and the poor. But its political arm has endorsed Barack Obama, who...

A long-time federal prosecutor once told me that as long as elections put people into positions where they can make decisions about how much the government will spend, who will receive the money, and how the government will exercise its power, elections will be important enough to tempt some individuals to steal them. As the Supreme Court recognized when it upheld the constitutionality of Indiana's voter identification law in 2008, flagrant examples of voter fraud "have been documented throughout this Nation's history by respected historians and journalists." Those examples "demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud...

This is Congressman Eugene Green (HT to an e-mailer), Democrat from Texas, telling the world that if you're not from his District, you're not welcome at his future town hall meetings -- oh, and how he'll enforce his new rule (bold is his):

Even if the liberal media continue to ignore it, the Justice Department's dismissal of a voter-intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party is a full-blown scandal. Fortunately, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is pursuing justice even though the Department of Justice is not. As reported in our news pages last Friday, the commission has sent a strongly worded letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., effectively threatening to subpoena witnesses and documents if Justice does not provide better, more complete answers about its decision to dismiss the cases. "We believe the Department's defense of its...

So, what do you do if you are the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and you are accused of violating state election laws? What else but hire the ACLU to try and get those laws thrown out as unconstitutional? In Pennsylvania, six members of ACORN have been indicted for violating a state election law prohibiting groups from setting quotas for voter registration drives. The ACLU claims that this rule violates the constitutional right of ACORN to utilize “commonplace management tools” and techniques to manage its paid workers. But the statute is clearly meant to maintain the integrity...

During last year’s Presidential election everyone remembers the video of two members from the New Black Panther Party poised with night sticks intimidating voters at a voting station in Philadelphia. President Bush immediately instructed the Department of Justice to investigate the situation and proceed with prosecution if called for. We had pretty much forgotten about this incident until recently. Three people were prosecuted, Malik Zulu Shabazz, Minister King Samir Shabazz, and additional member Jerry Jackson. All three were found guilty of intimidation of voters and making racial threats and insults. Now the rational thinker would think that this would be...

Rep. Wolf Challenges Holder Says Holder won't answer mail...ignores Congress about Black Panther dismissal...watch the video... http://video.newsmax.com/?bcpid=20972460001&bclid=22770166001&bctid=32670114001&s=al&promo_code=8517-1

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is demanding that the Justice Department explain why it recently dismissed a civil complaint against members of the New Black Panther Party who disrupted a Philadelphia polling place during last year's election, saying the department has offered only "weak justifications." Commission Chairman Gerald A. Reynolds, a former deputy associate attorney general under President George W. Bush, said he fears the legal precedent set by the department in its May decision to drop the case might encourage "other hate groups" to act similarly at polling locations in the future. Mr. Reynolds also charged that other...

One of the most sacred rights and responsibilities of American citizenship is voting. We are supposedly guaranteed that every person's vote is worth as much as every other person's vote. That guarantee has never been perfect, Blacks weren't allowed to vote until the 15th amendment in 1870, and women until 1920's 19th Amendment, but the tradition of the United States has been to aspire toward honest elections. This past election America took a major step backwards, ACORN, perpetuated voter fraud in at least 14 states to the point where some districts had MORE than 100% of registered voters casting ballots....

Congressional Republicans on Thursday escalated their criticism of the Justice Department for dismissing a controversial voter-intimidation case, demanding that civil charges against the New Black Panther Party be restored. They also renewed their request to interview career attorneys who disagreed with the administration's decision to dismiss the charges. Rep. Frank R. Wolf of Virginia, a senior Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, obtained an opinion Thursday from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) affirming that charges could legally be refiled without violating the double-jeopardy clause of the U.S. Constitution and said he thought Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was obligated...

Six months after the election, voter intimidation charges against members of the New Black Panther Party in Pennsylvania were dismissed by the Department of Justice, and this week, some lawmakers are demanding the administration answer why. As WND reported, the government filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia in January, alleging that NBPP members Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson stood outside a Philadelphia polling place in uniform, with Shabazz brandishing a nightstick-like weapon. Reports from the scene also say the pair issued racial threats and insults, and a GOP election monitor said he called police after being...

Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the No. 3 official in the Obama Justice Department, was consulted and ultimately approved a decision in May to reverse course and drop a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party of intimidating voters in Philadelphia during November's election, according to interviews. The department's career lawyers in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division who pursued the complaint for five months had recommended that Justice seek sanctions against the party and three of its members after the government had already won a default judgment in federal court against the...