The Dude?
Posted on 10/20/2008 8:40:57 AM PDT by SeafoodGumbo
Merely 18 days from the November 4 election and one group that is designed to get inner city and lower income people registered to vote is now being charged with voter registration fraud in 12 states. ACORN International's headquarters is right on Canal Street in New Orleans, and although this chapter hasn't been charged, the Secretary of State is investigating the group along with several others.
At the Registrar of Voters Office in Jefferson Parish, they have had to make boxes to store thousands of faulty new voter registration cards.
Rejected applications were thrown out because they were from felons, didn't have the information completed accurately or were possibly fake registrations altogether. The office also reported that they had lot of duplicate applications as well.
The Jefferson office spent thousands of dollars of their operating budget to mail letters to citizens who think they can vote on November 4 but won't be able to.
“At least 2,000 people that we've sent letters to that, again, we were unable to secure the information either the letter was returned because of no such address or individuals didn't respond,” said Dennis Dimarco, of the Jefferson Parish Registrar of Voters office.
Even Dimarco discovered he fell victim to what he calls voter registration fraud.
“It is not me and it's not my signature,” he said, showing a fraudulent voter registration with his name. But it did have his address. However, the Dennis Dimarco on the card has a different Social Security number, says he's African-American and his mother's maiden name is not Carves.
The was a card submitted by VIP, the acronym stands for Voting Is Power, one of the groups that had voter registration drives on the Westbank and that is funded by the Democratic Party, who also paid their people to find new voters.
There's also ACORN, a non-profit community group, which also did drives on the Westbank that has its own box of rejected cards.
Dimarco believes the problem with the major mistakes in voter registration comes from groups who paid people to register as many new voters as possible, which is why he believes they wrote their names on the back of the card.
“Depending who you listen to the group that was sponsored either received so much money, either per hour or per application,” he said.
Dimarco says on the Westbank alone, they received more than 2,600 new voter cards. Officials from the office say more than a thousand are null and void, either rejected or duplicated. Dimarco also says most of the new voters are democrats with 887 new registrants and republicans with 83.
Eyewitness News couldn't reach the Voting Is Power representative Angelle Wilson, but ACORN member Tanya Harris defends her non-profit saying there's no conspiracy, just human error.
“Over 1.3 million people in this country we registered and we're talking about less than half a percent of those registrations having something wrong with them, and we informed the registrar of voters,” she said.
Harris says their workers go through extensive training before they sign up new voters.
“You go where there is a need,” she said. “We’re out there in the community. We walk the streets.”
Dimarco says it is lucky for Louisiana that the voting registration laws require a 30 day period of research before a new voter is entered into the system.
“It's done through the Social Security Administration and the Department of Motor Vehicles,” said Registrar of Voters Dennis Ducote,
This is how officials are able to check and double check that the real Dennis Dimarco votes on November 4. He says the worst thing that can happen is a loss of trust. “It leads to mistrust in the process.”
The FBI has joined nearly a dozen states in investigating the fraud, but the local spokesperson for the FBI would not comment in relation to Secretary of State Jay Dardenne's investigation.
The voting law crimes being committed by ACORN and the Democrats remind me of the tactics one would expect of Hitler or Stalin.
One good thing is happening here. This stuff is coming forward BEFORE election day. In the past it was always after-the-fact.
I think voting fraud may have some bumpy times ahead.
The Dude?
They all need their conservative buddy Walter Sobchek to slap some sense into them.
So, when are they going to start “fining” these non-profits? I think a $25.00 per rejected registration would do wonders to help clear this up. That would help to defray the costs of processing these fake registrations.
Poor Jeff . . . I have heard of a high fiber diet but this is ridiculous.
Thank God they're not that smart - yet.
“more than a thousand are null and void, “ Of 2,600.
Luckily, Acorn assures us that this is 1/2 of 1%. Phew! That’s a relief! I thought it was more!
Simple solution to the voter fraud. Make EVERYONE who wants to vote show up IN PERSON at the election commission office once every four years and re-register, showing driver’s license and a SS card. Then make EVERYONE show picture ID at the polls. Do away with absentee balloting altogether except for the military and citizens living overseas but allow early voting.
bttt
Oops.
Did you just give them the strategy for 2012?
Prosecute.
Oh, I'm sure that ACORN was involved as well - this has their fingerprints all over it. Have the N.O. Times-Spittoon or the Baton Rouge Advocate dared to dig into this? Nope. Possibly the biggest political scandal ever - brewing right there in their front yard, and the only related news is about some ACORN-hole who embezzled a big pile of money.
Next to this crowd, Edwin Edwards looks like an amateur.
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