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Obama, ACORN, and Voter Fraud

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is, was and still is a very large radical Left-wing group operating throughout the country. They also have a very long history you may not realize.  You can read a detailed many page history at Discover the Networks: Here are some key points:

  • Was the largest radical group in America, with more than 400,000 dues-paying member families and more than 1,200 chapters in 110 U.S. cities
  • Was implicated in numerous reports of fraudulent voter registration, vote-rigging, voter intimidation, and vote-for-pay scams during recent election cycles
  • Pressured banks to lend money to underqualified minority borrowers
  • Maintains close ties to organized labor
  • Opposes capitalism
  • Calls for more government control over citizens and the economy
  • Favors a government monopoly in healthcare
  • Advocates an open-door immigration policy
  • Announced in March 2010 that it would officially disband as a national entity on April 1 of that year, but it continued thereafter to pursue its agendas under various names at the state level.
  • In this report on ACORN I am focusing on their involvement with Obama and voter fraud during his election.

    From Discover The Networks:

    ACORN has had a long, friendly relationship with Hillary Clinton, who was a featured guest speaker at the organization’s 2006 national convention. During her address, the Senator lauded ACORN for working “with people who want to organize unions in order to have a better chance to bargain collectively for pay and benefits.”

    Notwithstanding its affinity for Mrs. Clinton, ACORN has even closer, more longstanding ties to Barack Obama. Thus on Feb. 21, 2008, the organization officially endorsed Obama for U.S. President. This endorsement came at the very height of Obama’s hard-fought Democratic primary battle against Hillary Clinton. Welcoming the endorsement, Obama told an audience of ACORN workers and supporters: “I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues that you care about my entire career.”

    Tracing ACORN’s historical ties to Obama, columnist Mona Charen writes:

    “ACORN attracted Barack Obama in his youthful community organizing days. Madeline Talbott [a Chicago activist who led the aforementioned ACORN effort to storm the Chicago City Council in July 1997] hired him to train her staff — the very people who would later descend on Chicago’s banks as CRA shakedown artists. [Obama] later funneled money to [ACORN] through the Woods Fund, on whose board he sat, and through the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, ditto. Obama was not just sympathetic — he was an ACORN fellow traveler.”

    The New York Post reports the following about ACORN’s links to Obama:

    “Chicago ACORN sought out Obama’s legal services for a ‘motor voter’ case and partnered with him on his 1992 ‘Project VOTE’ registration drive. In those years, he also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN’s up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott’s drive against Chicago’s banks. More than that, Obama was  funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago’s Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation’s board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers — and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift.

    “The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN’s Madeline Talbott in her pioneering efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. He trained her personal staff and other aspiring ACORN leaders, he consulted with her extensively, and he arranged a major boost in foundation funding for her efforts.

    “And, as the leader of another charity — the Chicago Annenberg Challenge — Obama channeled more funding Talbott’s way, ostensibly for education projects but surely supportive of ACORN’s overall efforts.

    “In return, Talbott proudly announced her support of Obama’s first campaign for state Senate [in 1996], saying, ‘We accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer.’”

    In 2008 Obama’s presidential campaign demonstrated its solidarity with ACORN by quietly giving one of the organization’s front groups some $800,000 to fund a voter-registration drive on the Senator’s behalf.

    In November 2008 Matthew Vadum revealed how ACORN, after news of its implication in voter-fraud began to surface during Obama’s 2008 presidential bid, tried to protect the Democratic candidate by covering up its own ties to him:

    “In early October [2008], as media coverage of ACORN election fraud scandals intensified, ACORN removed a smoking gun from one of its websites. This was an article that linked Obama to ACORN and to Project Vote and made clear that the two entities were joined at the hip.

    “The 2004 article was by Toni Foulkes, a Chicago-based member of the ACORN national board and now a Chicago alderman, and it appeared in Social Policy, a publication of ACORN’s American Institute for Social Justice. Extolling Obama’s political organizing abilities, Foulkes described the close connections between ACORN and its affiliate, Project Vote. She wrote that ACORN ‘invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office.’ So it was only ‘natural for many of us to be active volunteers in his first campaign for State Senate and then his failed bid for U.S. Congress.’ The upshot? ‘By the time he ran for U.S. Senate, we were old friends.’”

    Lets look into some video connections and then look into the voter fraud allegations

    “You know you’ve got a friend in me. I definately welcome ACORN’s input, you don’t have to ask me about that. I’m going to call you even if you didn’t ask me.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vJcVgJhNaU

    “We are going to be calling all of you in to help shape the agenda”

    Here’s CNN on the Obama connections to ACORN

    And now the tapdance

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyMOHE8E7Ik

    Now, how about that voter fraud, lets look at some reports, and then the whistleblowers accounts.

    CNS News: “ACORN Submitted ‘Thousands and Thousands of Phony’ Voter Registrations, County Registrar Says” Wednesday, October 22, 2008

    Matthew Henderson, ACORN’s regional director for Southwest Nevada, however, said that a few duplicate and falsified forms may have slipped through ACORN’s vetting. But the group turned in between 3,000 and 4,000 tagged registration forms, Henderson said, and there is little evidence to support Lomax’s allegations that they missed “thousands.”

    TownHall.com:  “ACORN Voter Fraud in NM”

    The Associated Press reported Friday that the New Mexico GOP found 28 people who voted fraudulently in Albuquerque during the June Democratic primary by absentee ballot. One of the ballots was cast from someone named “Duran-Duran”

    The GOP’s review was conducted in House District 13 and only included 92 ballots. That means roughly a third of the ballots examined found by the GOP were fraudulent. The New Mexico GOP released 10 of their suspect ballots. They ballots did not contain required identification information such as Social Security numbers, drivers license numbers or birthdates.

    PajamasMedia: “The Complete Guide to ACORN Voter Fraud” October 14, 2008

    This year there have been several accusations of fraud against ACORN. Over a dozen states are investigating the organization already. Here is a complete list of the ongoing investigations:

    North Carolina — State Board of Elections officials have found at least 100 voter registration forms with the same names over and over again. The forms were turned in by ACORN. Officials sent about 30 applications to the state Board of Elections for possible fraud investigation.

    Ohio — The New York Post reported that a Cleveland man said he was given cash and cigarettes by aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 72 times. The complaints have sparked an investigation by election officials into the organization, whose political wing has supported Barack Obama. Witnesses have already been subpoenaed to testify against the organization.

    Nevada — Authorities raided the headquarters of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now on Tuesday October 7, 2008, after a month-long investigation. The fraudulent voter registrations included the Dallas Cowboys starting line-up.

    Indiana — More than 2,000 voter registration forms filed in northern Indiana’s Lake County filled out by ACORN employees turned out to be bogus. Officials also stopped processing a stack of about 5,000 applications delivered just before the October 6 registration deadline after the first 2,100 turned out to be phony.

    Connecticut — Officials are looking into a complaint alleging ACORN submitted fraudulent voter registration cards in Bridgeport. In one instance, an official said a card was filled out for a 7-year-old girl, whose age was listed as 27. 8,000 cards were submitted in Bridgeport.

    Missouri — The Kansas City election board is reporting 100 duplicate applications and 280 with fake information. Acorn officials agreed that at least 4% of their registrations were bogus. Governor Matt Blunt condemned the attempts by ACORN to commit voter fraud.

    Pennsylvania — Officials are investigating suspicious or incomplete registration forms submitted by ACORN. 252,595 voter registrations were submitted in Philadelphia. Remarkably, 57,435 were rejected — most of them submitted by ACORN.

    Wisconsin — In Milwaukee ACORN improperly used felons as registration workers. Additionally, its workers are among 49 cases of bad registrations sent to authorities for possible charges, as first reported by the Journal Sentinel.

    Florida — The Pinellas County Elections supervisor says his office has received around 35 voter registrations that appear to be bogus. There is also a question of 30,000 felons who are registered illegally to vote. Their connections with ACORN are not yet clear.

    Texas — Of the 30,000 registration cards ACORN turned in, Harris County tax assessor Paul Bettencourt says just more than 20,000 are valid. And just look at some of the places ACORN was finding those voters. A church just next door is the address for around 150 people. More than 250 people claim a homeless outreach center as their home address. Some listed a county mental health facility as their home and one person even wrote down the Harris County jail at the sheriff’s office.

    Michigan — ACORN in Detroit is being investigated after several municipal clerks reported fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications coming through. The clerk interviewed said the fraud appears to be widespread.

    New Mexico – The Bernalillo County clerk has notified prosecutors that some 1,100 fraudulent voter registration cards were turned in by ACORN.

    Cleveland.com: “Cuyahoga board probes ACORN voter registration drive” August 27, 2008

    CLEVELAND — A national organization that conducts voter registration drives for low-income people has curtailed its push in Cuyahoga County after the Board of Elections accused its workers of submitting fraudulent registration cards.

    The board is investigating the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Results of the inquiry could be turned over to the county prosecutor.

    Board employees said ACORN workers often handed in the same name on a number of voter registration cards, but showing that person living at different addresses. Other times, cards had the same name listed, but a different date of birth. Still another sign of possible fraud showed a number of people living at an address that turned out to be a restaurant.

    Newsmax: “More ACORN Fraud Exposed: ACORN Whistleblowers”

    ACORN is currently under investigation for fraudulent voter registration and related activities in at least 11 key battleground states.

    Election officials in several states have said that 50 percent of ACORN voter registrations are fictitious.

    Just last week, for example, ACORN’s offices in Nevada were raided by state law enforcement officials after reports that ACORN had registered the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys to vote in Las Vegas.

    In Connecticut, a 7-year-old girl was found to have been registered to vote by ACORN, which changed her age to 27.

    CNN Reports

    Associated Press

    Fox Reports

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuEHljjhjyk

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPvJRkyb8PQ

    Local News:  Drug Raid turns up ACORN worker and 7 voter registration forms

    WOIO News

    Now for the Whistleblower accounts

    Wall St. Journal: “An Acorn Whistleblower Testifies in Court” OCTOBER 30, 2008

    The FBI is investigating its voter registration efforts in several states, amid allegations that almost a third of the 1.3 million cards it turned in are invalid. And yesterday, a former employee of Acorn testified in a Pennsylvania state court that the group’s quality-control efforts were “minimal or nonexistent” and largely window dressing. Anita MonCrief also says that Acorn was given lists of potential donors by several Democratic presidential campaigns, including that of Barack Obama, to troll for contributions.

    The Obama campaign denies it “has any ties” to Acorn, but Mr. Obama’s ties are extensive. In 1992 he headed a registration effort for Project Vote, an Acorn partner at the time. He did so well that he was made a top trainer for Acorn’s Chicago conferences. In 1995, he represented Acorn in a key case upholding the constitutionality of the new Motor Voter Act — the first law passed by the Clinton administration — which created the mandated, nationwide postcard voter registration system that Acorn workers are using to flood election offices with bogus registrations.

    Ms. MonCrief testified that in November 2007 Project Vote development director Karyn Gillette told her she had direct contact with the Obama campaign and had obtained their donor lists. Ms. MonCrief also testified she was given a spreadsheet to use in cultivating Obama donors who had maxed out on donations to the candidate, but who could contribute to voter registration efforts. Project Vote calls the allegation “absolutely false.”

    She says that when she had trouble with what appeared to be duplicate names on the list, Ms. Gillette told her she would talk with the Obama campaign and get a better version. Ms. MonCrief has given me copies of the donor lists she says were obtained from other Democratic campaigns, as well as the 2004 DNC donor lists.

    In her testimony, Ms. MonCrief says she was upset by Acorn’s “Muscle for Money” program, which she said intimidated businesses Acorn opposed into paying “protection” money in the form of grants. Acorn’s Brian Kettering says the group only wants to change corporate behavior: “Acorn is proud of its corporate campaigns to stop abuses of working families.”

    Ms. MonCrief, 29, never expected to testify in a case brought by the state’s Republican Party seeking the local Acorn affiliate’s voter registration lists. An idealistic graduate of the University of Alabama, she joined Project Vote in 2005 because she thought it was empowering poor people. A strategic consultant for Acorn and a development associate with its Project Vote voter registration affiliate, Ms. MonCrief sat in on policy-making meetings with the national staff. She was fired early this year over personal expenses she had put on the group’s credit card.

    She says she became disillusioned because she saw that Acorn was run as the personal fiefdom of Wade Rathke, who founded the group in 1970 and ran it until he stepped down to take over its international operations this summer. Mr. Rathke’s departure as head of Acorn came after revelations he’d employed his brother Dale for a decade while keeping from almost all of Acorn’s board members the fact that Dale had embezzled over $1 million from the group a decade ago. (The embezzlement was confirmed to me by an Acorn official.)

    “Anyone who questioned what was going on was viewed as the enemy,” Ms. MonCrief told me. “Just like the mob, no one leaves Acorn happily.”

    “There’s no quality control on purpose, no checks and balances,” says Nate Toler, who worked until 2006 as the head organizer of an Acorn campaign against Wal-Mart in California. And Ms. MonCrief says it is longstanding practice to blame bogus registrations on lower-level employees who then often face criminal charges, a practice she says Acorn internally calls “throwing folks under the bus.”

    Gregory Hall, a former Acorn employee, says he was told on his very first day in 2006 to engage in deceptive fund-raising tactics. Mr. Hall has founded a group called Speaking Truth to Power to push for a full airing of Acorn’s problems “so the group can heal itself from within.”

    Human Events: “ACORN Whistleblowers Produce Shocking Testimony on Capitol Hill” 03/23/2009

    Late last week, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary, called for a hearing to investigate ACORN.  You read that right.  At a Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties subcommittee hearing entitled “Lessons Learned from the 2008 Election” last Thursday, witness testimony not only drew Conyers to the subcommittee hearing but events led to Conyers strongly urging that subcommittee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) conduct a full hearing on ACORN, calling allegations made at the hearing “serious.”

    Testimony also revealed ACORN’s unofficial “Muscle for the Money” program directed at fundraising from corporations.  Allegations were made of payments from Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to ACORN’s D.C office to harass The Carlyle Group and specifically David Rubenstein, a founder of the company.  Even though ACORN D.C. had no interest in The Carlyle Group, they were allegedly paid by SEIU to go break up a banquet and protest at Rubenstein’s house.

    It was called “Muscle for the Money” because they would go “intimidate people and protest.”  Targets of the protests included Sherwin-Williams, H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, and Money Mart among others, testimony revealed.  The apparent purpose was to get money from the targeted entities for ACORN.

    Perhaps the most controversial accusation revealed by whistleblower testimony was the scheme by which ACORN and Project Vote are paid by foundations per voter registered and the submission of copies of actual voter registration cards to the foundations, which is a violation of federal law.

    I spoke with whistleblower Anita MonCrief at the hearing.  “ACORN itself is sometimes paid by foundations per registration and, in some case,s they would send copies of the voter registration cards straight to the funder,” MonCrief said.  “Workers are improperly trained. … They are trained to never ask, ‘Are you registered to vote?’ because if the person says ‘Yes,’ they have to move on.  They ask, ‘Did you vote in the last election,’ and if the person says ‘No,’ they register them again.  This is how they duplicate registrations and flood the offices.”

    Accuracy in Media: August 13, 2010

    Given the political situation the country is currently facing today, the American Conservative Union puts forth the questions of what are we [America] going to be facing this fall, and further, what role will ACORN play?

    ACORN is a community organizing group which was found to have forged thousands of voter registration cards in dozens of states. Former employees of ACORN claimed that almost half of their company’s registrations were fraudulent, and their forged submissions in the previous Presidential election add up to nearly 600,000.

    Whistleblower Anita Moncrief on Fox

    Heres some witness/accomplice testimony reports

    The ACORN fell from a poisinous Socialist tree and grew into one of it’s own. Obama had no problem associating with them, working for them, training them, and using their fraud to get elected.

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