Obama camp downplays payments to ACORN

[stephanie]

my my, tsk tsk..

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's campaign distanced itself Thursday from its $800,000 payment linked to the liberal ACORN organization, which is under investigation in several states where it is suspected of filing fraudulent voter registrations.

Federal Election Commission reports show ACORN-affiliated Citizens Services Inc. got $832,598 from the Obama campaign for get-out-the-vote work during the primaries. But those payments stopped in May and the Obama campaign says they should not be an election issue.
"This is going to be an historic election with unprecedented voter participation, and we are committed to protecting the integrity of the voting process," Obama spokesman Nick Shapiro said. "We support local officials in their efforts to investigate any fraudulent behavior and the full prosecution of any illegal activities."

Still, the contributions to Citizens Services draw the Obama campaign closer to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, and the growing voter-fraud scandal that this week spread to the battleground state of Ohio.

The elections board in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, is reviewing about 65,000 voter cards submitted by ACORN after flagging 50 cards filled out for duplicate names, fictitious addresses, noncitizens and recycled names and addresses of currently registered voters, said board spokesman Mike West.

Similar probes reportedly are under way in other large Ohio counties.

Citizen Services is inextricably tied to ACORN. Along with nonprofit sister organization Project Vote, Citizens Services and ACORN share the same New Orleans address and the same executive staff while money flows freely between the three entities. In 1996, Project Vote's tax returns show it paid ACORN more than $4.6 million for campaign services and Citizens Services more than $779,000 for legal and administrative services.

The ACORN political action committee endorsed Mr. Obama for president.

read the rest..
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ents-to-acorn/

[Kathianne]

Some good news, even CNN is no longer ignoring ACORN:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/...ims/index.html

Thousands of voter registration forms faked, officials say


From Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnston
CNN Special Investigations Unit

CROWN POINT, Indiana (CNN) -- More than 2,000 voter registration forms filed in northern Indiana's Lake County by a liberal activist group this week have turned out to be bogus, election officials said Thursday.

The group -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN -- already faces allegations of filing fraudulent voter registrations in Nevada and faces investigations in other states.

And in Lake County, home to the long-depressed steel town of Gary, the bipartisan Elections Board has 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.

"All the signatures looked exactly the same," Ruthann Hoagland, a Republican on the board. "Everything on the card filled out looks exactly the same."

The forms included registrations submitted in the names of the dead -- and in one case, the name of a fast-food restaurant, Jimmy Johns. Sally LaSota, a Democrat on the board, called the forms fraudulent and said whoever filed them broke the law. VideoWatch how dead people are turning up on voter registration forms »

"ACORN, with its intent, perhaps was good in the beginning, but went awry somewhere," LaSota said.

Over the past four years, a dozen states have investigated complaints of fraudulent registrations filed by ACORN. On Tuesday, Nevada authorities raided an ACORN office in Las Vegas, Nevada, where workers are accused of registering members of the Dallas Cowboys football team. And the group has become the target of Republican attacks on voter fraud, a perennial GOP issue.

A subsidiary of the group was paid $800,000 by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign to register voters for the 2008 primaries, and ACORN's political wing endorsed Obama back in February. But Obama's campaign told CNN that it "is committed to protecting the integrity of the voting process," and said it has not worked with ACORN during the general election....

Then in Ohio, the courts rule for a semblance of sanity:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h...w-pegD93NCBV00

Ohio secretary of state must verify registrations

By TERRY KINNEY – 5 hours ago

CINCINNATI (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday ordered Ohio's top elections official to verify the identity of newly registered voters by matching them with other government documents.

U.S. District Judge George C. Smith in Columbus ruled that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner must perform verification required by the Help America Vote Act. That includes matching new registrants' information against information in databases maintained by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration.

The order was the result of a lawsuit the Ohio Republican Party filed against Brunner, a Democrat.

"Plaintiffs assert, and the court agrees, that it is hard to imagine a public interest more compelling than safeguarding the legitimacy of the election of the president of the United States," Smith wrote in his ruling.

Brunner also was ordered to establish a process by which Ohio's 88 county election boards can access information generated by the checks.

Residents registering to vote must provide their name, address, date of birth and either their driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number....

[GW in Ohio]

ACORN....


Another horseshit issue whose objective is to discredit Obama.

McCain can't beat Obama on the issues. (Iraq? Give me a break. The economy? It's the Republicans' fault. The environment? You want to trust the Republicans with the environment?)

And he can't beat him on judgment or on who looks more in command. When the financial crisis hit last week, McCain was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. "I'm stopping my campaign...I'm starting my campaign...I'm not debating....Okay, I'll debate...."

So the McCain team of political thugs has to try and take him down in other ways.

Groups like Acorn that support Obama may or may not have acted badly, but Obama didn't do anything wrong.

So what's your fucking point?

[stephanie]

a lot of testy liberals this morning...ya gotta feel for them, they always back the losers..

[darin]

ACORN....


Another horseshit issue whose objective is to discredit Obama.

McCain can't beat Obama on the issues. (Iraq? Give me a break. The economy? It's the Republicans' fault. The environment? You want to trust the Republicans with the environment?)

And he can't beat him on judgment or on who looks more in command. When the financial crisis hit last week, McCain was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. "I'm stopping my campaign...I'm starting my campaign...I'm not debating....Okay, I'll debate...."

So the McCain team of political thugs has to try and take him down in other ways.

Groups like Acorn that support Obama may or may not have acted badly, but Obama didn't do anything wrong.

So what's your fucking point?

You are becoming worse and worse in terms of vulgar and bitchy. Can you simply discuss the issues without turning threads into a bitch-fest?

[MtnBiker]

The Obama campaign pays ACORN over 800,000 in an effort to get out the vote.

ACORN is under investigation in a dozen states for fraudulant voter registration behavior.

The media does its job and reports this.

GWinOhio is pissed at McCain because the media is reporting on ACORN's fraudulant behavior.

Wow!

[stephanie]

the liberals see no problem with voter fraud-yawn

their candidate runs with foreign and domestic terrorist-yawn

that their man-boy is a dummy-yawn

liberals seem to care for only one thing-WINNING

sad..

[MtnBiker]

yet another event in Obama's past that he has to distance himself from

[avatar4321]

How exactly can Obama paying a group that is committing voter fraud on his behalf not be a vital issue? The issue is the very integrity of our electoral system! What the hells is more important than that?

I mean yeah the economy is important but what the heck does it matter if we undermine our Republic??? Id rather have a poor economy, then a nation I cant speak my mind and have my politicians accountable to me without the use of force.

Oh and McCain is going to hang the economy issue around Obamas neck.

[theHawk]

What? Pay an organization nearly a million dollars and recieve voter registration fraud in your favor? Nawwwwww .....

[theHawk]

ACORN....


Another horseshit issue whose objective is to discredit Obama.

McCain can't beat Obama on the issues. (Iraq? Give me a break. The economy? It's the Republicans' fault. The environment? You want to trust the Republicans with the environment?)

And he can't beat him on judgment or on who looks more in command. When the financial crisis hit last week, McCain was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. "I'm stopping my campaign...I'm starting my campaign...I'm not debating....Okay, I'll debate...."

So the McCain team of political thugs has to try and take him down in other ways.

Groups like Acorn that support Obama may or may not have acted badly, but Obama didn't do anything wrong.

So what's your fucking point?

If Obama can so easily beat McCain on "the issues", then why does Obammy and his ACORN thugs have to resort to cheating and voter fraud?