ACORN

Durbin Defends ACORN On The Senate Floor

Josh Kalven — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 09:31:48 -0800

Last night, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) introduced an amendment to the stimulus package that would prohibit the "direct or indirect use of funds to fund the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)." This is the latest example of the GOP's ongoing effort to demonize ACORN, which reached its zenith with their ridiculous "voter fraud" accusations last fall.

Thankfully, Sen. Dick Durbin stepped up to smack Vitter down, noting ACORN's good works and, more specifically, the assistance they provided to Louisiana residents following Hurricane Katrina (indeed, the organization is based in New Orleans). Watch:

The amendment, by the way, failed to pass.

Indiana Secretary Of State: Who's The Master?

Adam Doster — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 08:59:32 -0700

Meet Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita. By now, you might know him as the Republican official who stood idly by while a legitimate voter suppression battle developed in Lake County. He then promised to conduct a criminal investigation into the suspicious voter registration forms submitted by ACORN in the same county, despite no evidence suggesting the organization itself purposefully committed fraud. While his election-season behavior is frustrating, it shouldn't be shocking.

As Talking Points Memo noted, in a 2002 South Bend Tribune article pulled from Nexus, Rokita spoke fondly of his experience preventing a recount in Florida during the 2000 election:

Working on his own time, [Rokita] also assisted George W. Bush's campaign during the infamous Florida election recount in 2000. Rokita is proud of that, especially because the U.S. Supreme Court cited Indiana election law when it decided the election in Bush's favor.

But here's the real doozy. Last year, the AP caught him offering this dubious analysis of African-American voting patterns:

During a speech Thursday at a Republican event, Todd Rokita said 90 percent of blacks vote for Democrats.

"How can that be?" Rokita said. "Ninety to ten. Who's the master and who's the slave in that relationship? How can that be healthy?"

As Adam Serwer writes, "Rokita seems to have answered his own question: black people don't vote Republican because Republicans are given to reductive and dehumanizing racial commentary about black folks."

Meanwhile, in his request for an investigation of ACORN, Rokita dismisses the fact that the organization was required by law to submit all the registrations it received from its canvassers and that they notified election officials of the problematic forms:

Acorn officials contend they are required by law to submit all applications it collects, and a spokesman said they made efforts to call attention to applications that appeared to be problematic. The official said Acorn was the victim of unscrupulous employees and the organization fired at least five of those involved with the Lake County drive.

Rokita’s letter, however, states that “complying with the law to submit legitimate applications does not allow Acorn officials to evade the law against knowingly submitting fraudulent applications.”

Thomas from Blue Indiana sums up the problems with Rokita's statement:

It seems to me that ACORN had some bad employees who committed some highly unethical acts. If ACORN is telling the truth about flagging these applications -- and there hasn't been any substantial evidence to the contrary -- then they are being accused of a crime for following the law.

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Unless, of course, this is nothing more than a political ploy to stoke the deep-seeded fear of Lake County and renew the fundamentally false connection between the Democratic ticket and a troubled community organizing organization. But Todd Rokita wouldn't do that, would he?

"The Truth About ACORN"

Josh Kalven — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:19:41 -0700

Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films just released a new five-minute video that gives various members of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) an opportunity to defend themselves from widespread claims that they're attempting to steal the election. The video effectively undercuts much of the logic driving such accusations. It's worth a watch:

For more on ACORN, check out our extensive coverage of the controversy.

Bruce Dold Accuses ACORN Of Becoming "Partisan" In Response To Attacks

Josh Kalven — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:01:37 -0700

On Friday's week-in-review edition of WTTW's Chicago Tonight, the panel discussion at one point turned to the controversy surrounding ACORN's voter registration drives in certain swing states. When asked by host Joel Weisman to lay out the "vote fraud charges," Tribune editorial page editor Bruce Dold gave an insufficient explanation -- one that left out crucial facts and left Weisman looking pretty confused. Specifically, Dold never mentioned that there's no evidence the faulty voter registrations turned in by ACORN will actually lead to fraud at the polls. ABC 7's Andy Shaw then pivoted to the connections between ACORN and Barack Obama, saying: "This is the same sort of taint he's faced in other ways. It's a little bit of guilt-by-association, but nothing direct." Business writer Bob Reed went on to refer to the group's history of mismanagement. Dold finally added that ACORN is "running a very aggressive defense of these charges. I mean, they've become partisan in their handling of this issue." Watch it:

Of course, Dold's claim that ACORN has "become partisan" completely overlooks the fact that it was the Republican Party and the McCain campaign that manufactured the uproar in the first place. ACORN's "aggressive" defense did not come from any political motivation, but rather from the need to rebut the GOP's scurrilous suggestion that they're attempting to steal the election.

Chicago Obama Volunteer Attacked In Wisconsin

Josh Kalven — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:32:55 -0700

Following the death threats and vandalism last week, we now have more evidence of the real-world ramifications brought on by the Republicans' ACORN hysteria:

In an exclusive interview with 12 News, 58 year-old Nancy Takehara of Chicago says she was going door-to-door when she came across a disgruntled homeowner.

“The next thing I know he’s telling us we’re not his people, we’re probably with ACORN, and he started screaming and raving,” Takehara said. “He grabbed me by the back of the neck. I thought he was going to rip my hair out of my head. He was pounding on my head and screaming. The man terrified me.” [...]

“This negative stuff has to stop,” said Takehara. “We’re all Americans. This is all about protecting our democracy, not about attacking each other.”

When Takehara got home, she was greeted by a message from Barack Obama, whom she later spoke to about the incident.

(H/T DailyKos diarist RFDblog)

IndyStar: "Acorn Followed Law On Suspect Voter Registrations"

Josh Kalven — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 11:32:38 -0700

The Indianapolis Star has an article out today that CNN's Drew Griffin really needs to read. It clearly reports what we've been pointing out for weeks (and what reporters like Griffin have been intent on ignoring) -- that ACORN was required by law to turn in all registrations it received from its canvassers in Lake County, IN and that it separated the forms it suspected as fraudulent:

ACORN said it took steps to ensure officials knew some of the registrations it turned in were potentially bad.

"We ID'd those applications as questionable," Charles D. Jackson, spokesman for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, said of the Lake County applications.

"We turned them in three separate stacks: ones we had been able to verify, ones that were incomplete and ones that were questionable or suspicious."

Jim Gavin, spokesman for Secretary of State Todd Rokita, Indiana's top election official, confirmed that groups that conduct registration drives in the state must turn in all applications they collect.

Failure to do so, Gavin said, is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and up to one year in prison.

Ruthann Hoagland, assistant registration administrator with the Lake County Board of Elections and Voter Registration, confirmed that about 2,500 applications ACORN submitted were divided into three groups, as Jackson described.

The Star also quotes an election law expert dismissing the Republicans "voter fraud" fearmongering:

Nathaniel Persily, a Columbia Law School professor, said registration fraud is very different from actual voter fraud, which occurs at the polls.

"The effect is not going to change the outcome of the election or allow imaginary people to vote," he said. [...]

While Rokita and others are looking into the Lake County situation, experts said they saw little chance of voter fraud.

In Indiana, local election officials must verify every application through a variety of sources -- including the BMV, state Department of Health, a federal Social Security database, and the Department of Correction -- before they are added to the voter rolls.

(H/T The Indiana Law Blog)

Bill Maher on ACORN: "They're Not Trying To Fool Anybody"

Josh Kalven — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:10:46 -0700

Last night on CNN's Larry King Live, Bill Maher made a brief but effective comment about the ACORN controversy manufactured by Republicans in recent weeks, which he called "completely bogus" and another example of how "people don't really get the true information." His facts were a little fuzzy around the edges (for instance, he overlooked the role of canvassers in the process and suggested that voter registrations are happening over the phone). But unlike certain CNN reporters, he noted that the problematic registrations being highlighted by the GOP were first flagged as "suspicious" by ACORN officials themselves.

As I've written before, this fact completely undercuts the logic of Republicans' suggestion that the group is somehow trying to steal the election. If they are and if these faulty registrations are part of that plan, why in the world would ACORN itself notify election officials of the problems when they turn in the forms? As Maher said, "They're not trying to fool anybody." Watch it:

Meanwhile, the New York Times editorialized on the subject today and came to this astute conclusion:

The answer is for government to a better job of registering people to vote. That way there would be less need to rely on private registration drives, largely being conducted by well-meaning private organizations that use low-paid workers. Federal and state governments should do their own large-scale registration drives staffed by experienced election officials. Even better, Congress and the states should adopt election-day registration, which would make such drives unnecessary.

The real threats to the fabric of democracy are the unreasonable barriers that stand in the way of eligible voters casting ballots.

Number Of The Day: 54

Josh Kalven — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:26:01 -0700

That's the number of segments CNN has run in the last ten days on allegations that ACORN is responsible for voter registration fraud in multiple states. According to Media Matters, which tallied the segments, only one of these 54 reports mentioned both of these salient points:

1) that the statutes of most of those states require third parties registering prospective voters to submit all registration forms they receive; and 2) that actual instances of illegal votes being cast as a result of registration fraud are extremely rare.

In the past week, we've flagged two reports from CNN's Drew Griffin on the registrations submitted by ACORN in Northwest Indiana. In addition to omitting the points above, he also failed to inform viewers that ACORN itself flagged 2,100 suspicious registrations among the 5,000 it turned in Lake County -- a fact that undermines the suggestion from conservatives that the group is somehow trying to "perpetrate one of the greatest frauds in voter history."

GOP Warns Of More ACORN Problems ... In Illinois?

Angela Caputo — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:09:51 -0700

It appears that the GOP believe so strongly in their false claims that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is out to commit "election fraud" that they're now issuing warnings in places where the group isn't even registering voters.

Illinois GOP attorney Brien Sheahan sent a letter to Chicago-area election officials yesterday cautioning them to be on the lookout for the activities of "so-called community groups" such as ACORN.

But according to officials in two of the state's largest election authorities -- Chicago and Cook County -- it's been years since ACORN registered voters in the area. In fact, ACORN headquarters told us that the group hasn't participated in voter registration drives anywhere in Illinois during the 2008 election season.

With ACORN adding a record number of voters to the rolls in swing states this fall, it's no wonder the GOP is fearful of 1.3 million low-income and minority voters heading to the polls on November 4. But their fearmongering about the group -- John McCain said during a debate last night that they may be "perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country" -- just doesn't add up.

Indeed, McClatchy ran a roundup of the Republican challenges to ACORN's registrations and concluded that "mounting evidence of Acorn's sloppy management and poor supervision ... so far doesn't support the explosive charges that the group is trying to rig the presidential election."

Cook County Clerk David Orr agreed that the "voter fraud" charges, particularly in Northwest Indiana, are probably a stretch. Orr correctly noted that it was ACORN officials who initially flagged the questionable registrations there.

Orr also emphasized that Cook County has safeguards in place to ensure problematic registrations don't make their way through. For instance, he said that the county tosses out an estimated five to ten percent of the forms they receive because people file twice.

"I don't want this to become a game of political football," he said in response to the GOP's warning. "We scrutinize very carefully."

McCain Headlined ACORN Event In 2006 (UPDATED w/VIDEO)

Josh Kalven — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:34:56 -0700

Politico's Ben Smith has the goods, as well as the above photo:

The beleaguered Democratic-leaning community group Acorn sends over this photograph: John McCain, in March of 2006, sitting beside Florida Rep. Kendrick Meek at an event Acorn co-sponsored in Florida.

The immigration event, which other photos show was packed with red-shirted Acorn member, was co-sponsored by the local Catholic Archdiocese, the SEIU, and other groups.

McCain, still spiting much of his party on immigration at the time, was the headliner.

A spokesman goes on to say that the organization is saddened "to see Senator McCain abandon his historic support for ACORN." Meanwhile, I'm heartened to see them finally fighting back.

UPDATE: The Oxdown Gazette has more examples of high-profile Republicans cavorting with ACORN.

UPDATE II: Via Marc Ambinder, here's video of McCain's remarks at another event co-sponsored by ACORN, this one on February 20, 2006. From the podium he says, "What makes America special is what's in this room tonight." Watch it: