and an Acorn never falls far from its tree. [rquoter]Criminal charges filed against ACORN, two employees By Mary Manning Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller announced Monday that voter registration fraud charges have been filed against an organization that works with low-income people and two of its employees in its Las Vegas office. The complaint includes 26 counts of voter fraud and 13 counts for compensating those registering voters, both felonies. The Association of Community Organization for Reform Now, Inc., also known as ACORN, operated a Las Vegas office that helped register low-income voters last year. Throughout 2008, ACORN employed canvassers to register people to vote in Nevada, the complaint said. ACORN paid the canvassers between $8 and $9 an hour, but made continued employment and continued compensation based on the canvasser registering 20 voters per shift. Those who failed to sign up 20 voters per shift were terminated, the complaint said. From July 27 through Oct. 2 ACORN also provided additional compensation under a bonus program called "Blackjack" or "21+" that was based on the total number of voters a person registered. A canvasser who brought in 21 or more completed voter registration forms per shift would be paid a bonus of $5. The Blackjack program was created by employee Christopher Edwards, field director for the Las Vegas office. ACORN timesheets indicate that corporate officers of ACORN were aware of the Blackjack bonus program and failed to take immediate action to stop it. Amy Busefink was ACORN's deputy regional director who was also aware of the Blackjack program and aided and abetted the scheme by approving Edwards' bonus program. The investigation into the scheme stemmed from a complaint filed with Miller's office by Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax. Lomax's office received a significant number of voter registration application forms that appeared to be fraudulent, although none of the irregular forms ended up in the November election. "Nevada will not tolerate violations of the law by individuals nor will it allow corporations to hide behind or place blame on their employees when training manuals clearly detail, condone and, indeed, require illegal acts in performing the job for the corporation," Masto said during a media conference today. "This investigation is the direct result of our aggressive response to those safeguards," Miller said, referring to a state task force formed in July. State investigators, armed with a search warrant, sought evidence of voter registration fraud at ACORN's Las Vegas office on Oct. 7. The investigation began in July, as soon as the task force formed. Allegations that some registration applications were completed with false information, while other applications attempted to register the same person several times, led investigators to raid the office, Miller said at the time. The Secretary of State's Office had provided 2,000 voter registration applications to ACORN, all for registering voters in Clark County. The task force also seized eight computer hard drives and about 20 boxes of documents in the rain, related to ACORN's "Project Vote," the registration drive. One ex-employee of ACORN, Jason Anderson, rose to a supervisor position in the voter registration program although he was a convicted felon and an inmate in a medium security facility in Las Vegas at the time, a 19-page affidavit said. ACORN officials said they were stunned by the October raid because they had already identified and flagged suspicious registration forms to the Clark County Election Department, starting in July, according to Brian Mellor, senior counsel for Project Vote. ACORN forms were resubmitted to the state in September, he said. ACORN had been the focus of heated denunciation by the Republican National Committee and the John McCain presidential campaign. A call to the Las Vegas ACORN office was not answered. "We commend the Secretary of State and Attorney General's offices for their work in this investigation," said Phoebe Sweet, director of communications for the Nevada State Democratic Party. "Clearly the system works, and fraudulent registrations were caught and disqualified. And today's action on the part of the Secretary of State and Attorney General will help ensure that unlawful quota systems that encourage fraud are not used in the future."[/rquoter]
Filthy stuff. When you sleep with dogs, you get fleas. The track record of who Obama and company have associated with straight up REEKS.
Can someone remind me of the OP's outrage when the McCain campaign ran robo-calls in Nevada, targetting Latino voters, informing them that they could "vote by phone" on November 4? I know he cares deeply about Nevada voters, but I can't seem to find the thread he posted about it.
The article talks about the Blackjack program as though it were actually illegal. It sounds like a bad incentive scheme that creates bad behavior, but I don't see where it'd be illegal.
better than saying it is excusable for one side, but not the other. of course, b-bob didn't say that at all. it's just that his name came up on the "call basso out" wheel today. you've made it to where we have to organize these things.
Is it your position that fraud is only noteworthy on one side? I never saw you complain about this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/20/mccain-employing-gop-oper_n_136254.html Here, you actually had the McCain campaign directly paying money to a firm who specializes in voter fraud? As Republican Congressman Chris Cannon summarized during a joint hearing for the subcommittee on commercial and administrative law back in May 2008: "The difference between ACORN and Sproul is that ACORN doesn't throw away or change registration documents after they have been filled out." Indeed, Sproul's history is filled with allegations of political misdeeds. During the 2004 election, Sproul & Associates (the former name of Lincoln Strategy) was accused of attempting to destroy forms collected by Democratic voters in Nevada. That same year in Oregon, Sproul & Associates allegedly instructed canvassers to only accept Republican registration forms in addition to destroying those turned in by Democrats. In Minnesota, meanwhile, Sproul's firm was accused of actually firing workers who brought back Democratic registration forms, while other canvassers were allegedly paid "$13 an hour, with the $3 bonus for every Bush, undecided or Ralph Nader voter registration." Similar problems related to Sproul & Associates popped up in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Exactly. I'll be glad when I'm back to scoop-the-cat-litter duty. (sigh). FWIW, I have several times, right here on this here part of the interwebs, said that the ACORN model of voter registration drives is fundamentally flawed and will necessarily lead to (minor) problems. I have also said voter suppression, by the data, is a far larger problem in the US. I say these things consistently, but lord only knows why.
