McCain Acorn Fears Overblown: Vote Tampering and Fraud Sees Seven or Eight Convictions a Year, Says Expert

[one...two...tree 2,762]

By JUSTIN ROOD, ABC News

Charges of potential vote fraud volleyed by Republicans, including Sen. John McCain himself, are out of proportion to reality, according to election experts.

The concerns raised by the Republican National Committee in daily conference calls with reporters, as well as by McCain himself in Wednesday's debate focus on the nonprofit group Acorn, whose nationwide voter registration efforts have garnered apparently fraudulent registration cards, some for fictional characters like "Mickey Mouse."

Acorn, whose registration efforts generally target poor neighborhoods, "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy," McCain claimed last night, citing Sen. Barack Obama's ties to the group.

Obama reportedly worked with Acorn when he ran a Chicago-area voter registration drive shortly after graduating from law school, and conducted leadership training with the group. During the primaries, Obama's campaign paid an Acorn-affiliated group $800,000 for get-out-the-vote efforts, which reportedly did not include voter registration. The group's political arm has endorsed Obama's candidacy.

But McCain's voter fraud worries about Acorn or anyone else are unsupported by the facts, said experts on election fraud, who recall similar concerns being raised in several previous elections, despite a near-total absence of cases.

"There's no evidence that any of these invalid registrations lead to any invalid votes," said David Becker, project director of the "Make Voting Work" initiative for the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Becker should know: he was a lawyer for the Bush administration until 2005, in the Justice Department's voting rights section, which was part of the administration's aggressive anti-vote-fraud effort.

"The Justice Department really made prosecution of voter fraud of this sort a big priority in the first half of this decade, and they really didn't come up with anything," he said.

"We're chasing these ghosts of voter fraud, like chickens without a head," said Lorraine Minnite, a political science professor at Barnard College in New York who has researched voter fraud and fraud claims for most of the past decade. "I think it's completely overblown, I think it's meant to be a distraction."

"This stuff does not threaten the outcome of the election," said Minnite. "How many illegal ballots have been cast by people who are fraudulently registered to vote? By my count, it's zero. I just don't know of any, I've been looking for years for this stuff."

Vote Tampering and Fraud Sees Seven or Eight Convictions a Year, Says Expert

For all types of vote tampering and fraud, including vote buying, Minnite says the Justice Department has averaged seven or eight convictions a year.

Despite the experts' opinions, a McCain-Palin campaign spokesman reiterated that their concern was real. In cases like absentee voting, "there's no way of knowing whether [voters] are who they say they are," said the spokesman, who declined to be identified.

So far, one case of alleged vote fraud has been reported in this election: On Sept. 30, an Ohio man reportedly attempted to vote using the state's early-voting process, who registered under a fake address, according to the New York Post. However, the state's bipartisan election board was downplaying concerns over such fraud, according to the paper.

Acorn has defended its efforts by pointing out that it has reported "almost all" of the bogus cards itself, and noting that McCain had supported the group's efforts in other areas in the past. "Repeating a lie doesn't make it true," read a statement the group released last night in response to McCain's attack, "and the McCain campaign has resorted to the worst type of deceptions in regards to Acorn."

And while the RNC has labeled Acorn a "quasi-criminal group," not all Republicans share their party's concern. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, whom McCain once reportedly considered as a running mate, told a reporter recently that he wasn't worried by Acorn's registration efforts in his state.

Even the non-partisan truth-in-politics Web site FactCheck.org called foul on McCain's alleged possible conspiracy, noting that a Republican prosecutor handling a key Acorn registration fraud case has said there's no evidence indicating the group was involved in vote fraud.

"This scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting," said King County, Wash. Prosecutor Dan Satterberg in a 2007 statement, after a federal-state investigation found seven Acorn workers had submitted over 1,700 bogus voter registration forms.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id...9529&page=1

[Sofiyya 1,687]

You are truly trying to play this ACORN thing down, Steven, just like the liberal media. Are they paying you?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

You are truly trying to play this ACORN thing down, Steven, just like the liberal media. Are they paying you?

The facts are there. I challenge you or anyone to explain exactly what ACORN has done that is illegal.

...and in case you missed this gem in the above article:

There's no evidence that any of these invalid registrations lead to any invalid votes," said David Becker, project director of the "Make Voting Work" initiative for the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Becker should know: he was a lawyer for the Bush administration until 2005, in the Justice Department's voting rights section, which was part of the administration's aggressive anti-vote-fraud effort.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The facts are there. I challenge you or anyone to explain exactly what ACORN has done that is illegal.

You're in for more copy and paste jobs of opinion pieces and hit-jobs from newsmax, my friend.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The facts are there. I challenge you or anyone to explain exactly what ACORN has done that is illegal.

You're in for more copy and paste jobs of opinion pieces and hit-jobs from newsmax, my friend.

Yep. For some, insinuation, hearsay and suspicion is good enough to label someone or a group, criminal. And given that this is during an election year (a huge one at that), such intellectual dishonesty is what is really undermining our democracy.

[IAMX 3,055]

I have yet to see one conviction of casting a fake ballot thusfar this year. Just one "alleged" fake cast ballot.

When this happens, I'll be concerned. However, it has been shown that people who HAVE the right to vote have had their voting right scrubbed before. It was a very large concern in the 2000 elections, and the GOP have had clear intentions of finding loopholes in the system that were used to purge voters off the rolls to knock them out yet again. If it were a genuine case of honesty, they'd be in prominent GOP areas doing so, instead specifically target historically non-GOP areas.

I do wonder though why is it American citizens have to register to vote? All of this confusion would be solved if a person, upon hitting 18, were automatically registered. Or some sort of extremely simple, uniform plan. The fact that there is such ambiguity amongst registration rules is an invitation for election stunts all around.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

The facts are there. I challenge you or anyone to explain exactly what ACORN has done that is illegal.

You're in for more copy and paste jobs of opinion pieces and hit-jobs from newsmax, my friend.

Yep. For some, insinuation, hearsay and suspicion is good enough to label someone or a group, criminal. And given that this is during an election year (a huge one at that), such intellectual dishonesty is what is really undermining our democracy.

Just because you don't believe they have a problem or two, Steven, is not reason enough to agree with you. As you can find articles defending ACORN, there are those to be found opposing them. You have to defend them coz your man is knee deep in with them. But, I'm a longtime political junkie and old enough to remember their genesis. You can try to sell this to the malable, angry and naive, but I won't be buying what you're selling.

Edited October 19, 2008 by Virtual wife

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The facts are there. I challenge you or anyone to explain exactly what ACORN has done that is illegal.

You're in for more copy and paste jobs of opinion pieces and hit-jobs from newsmax, my friend.

Yep. For some, insinuation, hearsay and suspicion is good enough to label someone or a group, criminal. And given that this is during an election year (a huge one at that), such intellectual dishonesty is what is really undermining our democracy.

Just because you don't believe they have a problem or two, Steven, is not reason enough to agree with you. As you can find articles defending ACORN, there are those to be found opposing them. You have to defend them coz your man is knee deep in with them. But, I'm a longtime political junkie and old enough to remember their genesis. You can try to sell this to the malable, angry and naive, but I won't be buying what you're selling.

When and where has a court of law found ACORN guilty of what?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Three plead guilty in fake voter scheme

By Keith Ervin

Seattle Times staff reporter

Three of seven defendants in the biggest voter-registration fraud scheme in Washington history have pleaded guilty and one has been sentenced, prosecutors said Monday.

The defendants were all temporary employees of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, when they allegedly filled out and submitted more than 1,800 fictitious voter-registration cards during a 2006 registration drive in King and Pierce counties.

No votes were cast in the names of the phony voters. Prosecutors said the defendants committed fraud in order to keep their jobs without actually registering voters.

King County election workers brought the fraud to the attention of prosecutors last October, after noticing that signatures on many registration forms looked like they had been written by the same person.

Ryan Olson, 28, of Needles, Calif., was the first to be sentenced. He pleaded guilty Thursday in King County Superior Court to two counts of providing false information on a voter-registration application, a felony. Court Commissioner Kenneth Comstock sentenced him to 30 days in jail or in electronic home detention, the sentence recommended by prosecutors, said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the King County Prosecutor's Office.

Tina Johnson, 24, of Tacoma, and Jayson Woods, 20, of Elkridge, Md., also have pleaded guilty to eight counts each of registration fraud. Donohoe said prosecutors have recommended 120 days of jail for each of them using the same formula applied to Olson: 15 days for each count.

Brianna Debwa, 35, of Tacoma; Robert Greene, 56, of Tacoma; and Clifton Mitchell, 45, of Lakewood, Pierce County, have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to appear in court in November. Kendra Thill, 19, no known address, was charged with voter fraud and is wanted for failure to appear in court.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com

Edited October 19, 2008 by Virtual wife

[IAMX 3,055]

Three plead guilty in fake voter scheme

By Keith Ervin

Seattle Times staff reporter

Three of seven defendants in the biggest voter-registration fraud scheme in Washington history have pleaded guilty and one has been sentenced, prosecutors said Monday.

The defendants were all temporary employees of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, when they allegedly filled out and submitted more than 1,800 fictitious voter-registration cards during a 2006 registration drive in King and Pierce counties.

No votes were cast in the names of the phony voters. Prosecutors said the defendants committed fraud in order to keep their jobs without actually registering voters.

King County election workers brought the fraud to the attention of prosecutors last October, after noticing that signatures on many registration forms looked like they had been written by the same person.

Ryan Olson, 28, of Needles, Calif., was the first to be sentenced. He pleaded guilty Thursday in King County Superior Court to two counts of providing false information on a voter-registration application, a felony. Court Commissioner Kenneth Comstock sentenced him to 30 days in jail or in electronic home detention, the sentence recommended by prosecutors, said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the King County Prosecutor's Office.

Tina Johnson, 24, of Tacoma, and Jayson Woods, 20, of Elkridge, Md., also have pleaded guilty to eight counts each of registration fraud. Donohoe said prosecutors have recommended 120 days of jail for each of them using the same formula applied to Olson: 15 days for each count.

Brianna Debwa, 35, of Tacoma; Robert Greene, 56, of Tacoma; and Clifton Mitchell, 45, of Lakewood, Pierce County, have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to appear in court in November. Kendra Thill, 19, no known address, was charged with voter fraud and is wanted for failure to appear in court.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com

[Sofiyya 1,687]

When and where has a court of law found ACORN guilty of what?

[IAMX 3,055]

Indeed. Just rubbing the large font text in your face. You may proceed.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Three plead guilty in fake voter scheme

By Keith Ervin

Seattle Times staff reporter

Three of seven defendants in the biggest voter-registration fraud scheme in Washington history have pleaded guilty and one has been sentenced, prosecutors said Monday.

The defendants were all temporary employees of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, when they allegedly filled out and submitted more than 1,800 fictitious voter-registration cards during a 2006 registration drive in King and Pierce counties.

No votes were cast in the names of the phony voters. Prosecutors said the defendants committed fraud in order to keep their jobs without actually registering voters.

King County election workers brought the fraud to the attention of prosecutors last October, after noticing that signatures on many registration forms looked like they had been written by the same person.

Ryan Olson, 28, of Needles, Calif., was the first to be sentenced. He pleaded guilty Thursday in King County Superior Court to two counts of providing false information on a voter-registration application, a felony. Court Commissioner Kenneth Comstock sentenced him to 30 days in jail or in electronic home detention, the sentence recommended by prosecutors, said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the King County Prosecutor's Office.

Tina Johnson, 24, of Tacoma, and Jayson Woods, 20, of Elkridge, Md., also have pleaded guilty to eight counts each of registration fraud. Donohoe said prosecutors have recommended 120 days of jail for each of them using the same formula applied to Olson: 15 days for each count.

Brianna Debwa, 35, of Tacoma; Robert Greene, 56, of Tacoma; and Clifton Mitchell, 45, of Lakewood, Pierce County, have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to appear in court in November. Kendra Thill, 19, no known address, was charged with voter fraud and is wanted for failure to appear in court.

You disappoint me. The task was fairly clear and you failed. It's like me asking what one plus one is and you telling me that five less three is two. Now, you're statement is correct but it does little, if anything, to address the question at hand.

But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you just didn't understand the question at hand. So, let me ask again:

When and where has a court of law found ACORN guilty of what?

Made it big and bold for you. Maybe that helps you grasp the question.

Edited October 19, 2008 by Mr. Big Dog

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Indeed. Just rubbing the large font text in your face. You may proceed.

To what purpose? Why would I be affected by that? I work with the law every day.