ACORN Not Telling Local Reporters the Whole Truth

On Saturday the local ACORN chapter had a news conference. I attended. When it was time for some Q&A I directly asked ACORN's Matthew Henderson if the group considered itself non-partisan? He answered it was a non-partisan group. I followed up the question with another. Had the group ever endorsed a candidate? Henderson assured me and the other reporter's in the room that they had not and would not.

Now, look what I found posted by editor by Katrina vanden Heuvel on The Nation back in February . It's an endorsement the group made of Barack Obama during the presidential primary.

So now the question is are they lying about training, background checks and the integrity of their local voter registration operation?

Perhaps its time for the state legislature to consider banning all (Democratic and Republican) third party registration groups. Why would it be so difficult to mandate all voter registrations be completed at the county clerks office or your local Motor Vehicles Office.

I imagine there will be those that insist that some in the community can't find there way there or it is an inconvenience. I say if you can't make it to the office you probably won't make it to the polls anyway.

The endorsement article posted by Katrina vanden Heuvel on 02/23/2008 @ 3:46pm

Yesterday, ACORN's political action committee endorsed Barack Obama for President. This is an important nod from a group that understands the urgent needs of Americans most hurt by this economy and how to organize for social and economic justice.

ACORN is the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, with over 350,000 member families, organized into 800 neighborhood chapters, in 104 cities nationwide. The endorsement reflects a belief that Obama – who worked as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago – understands that change must come from the ground-up, as part of a working coalition, rather than from position papers.

As Maude Hurd, ACORN's National President, put it, "What it came down to was that Senator Obama is the candidate who best understands and can affect change on the issues ACORN cares about like stopping foreclosures, enacting fair and comprehensive immigration reform, and building stronger and safer communities across America."

In last night's debate, Obama spoke as a candidate --and a former community organizer--when he said: "The reason that this campaign has done so well is because people understand that it is not just a matter of putting forward policy positions…. If we can't inspire the American people to get involved in their government… then we will continue to see the kind of gridlock and nonperformance in Washington that is resulting in families suffering in very real ways…. I'm running for president to start doing something about that suffering, and so are the people who are behind my campaign…. It is my strong belief that the changes are only going to come about if we're able to form a working coalition for change…. The problem we have is that Washington has become a place where good ideas go to die."

When it comes to rebuilding New Orleans, the foreclosure crisis, poverty, and an economy where growth doesn't just benefit the wealthy , change is going to come through ongoing organization and mobilization at the grassroots. Obama gets that fundamental political argument. That's one of the reasons The Nation endorsed him. That's why his campaign has been so successful against a powerful, top-down, Clinton machine. And that's why yesterday he won ACORN's important endorsement.

FBI Investigating Voter Registration Fraud in New Mexico!

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the FBI is investigating possible voter fraud in New Mexico at the same time the GOP is renewing it's complaints against ACORN, whose offices were raided in Nevada earlier this week.

Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse-Oliver has turned over 1,400 potentially fraudulent registrations and defeated State Representative Dan Silva's attorneys, Jason Bowles and BJ Crow reportedly have another 2,000 questionable registrations.

Wall Street Journal Reporter Evan Perez reports among a rash of vote-fraud complaints across the nation, one of the biggest instances of suspicious registrations can be found in Bernalillo County, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened a preliminary investigation into 1,400 potentially fraudulent registrations.

That number represents an increase over the estimated 1,100 questionable voter registration cards reported in September by Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver, who told the Albuquerque Journal last month that she had notified state and federal agencies about the problem.

Toulouse Oliver told the Journal at the time that the number of potentially fraudulent registrations could grow because there was still a backlog of about 6,000 registrations that hadn't been entered into the system in mid-September.

The Democratic county clerk who is overseeing her first presidential election told the Wall Street Journal that her office's review of registration card works."That's 1,400 cards here sitting in a file; they're not entered into the system," Toulouse
Oliver told the WSJ.

More from the Wall Street Journal report:

In New Mexico, there is a history of razor-thin election margins, magnifying the impact of any potential fraud. At the end of election night in 2000, George W. Bush led by four votes. After discovering a box of misplaced ballots, officials declared Al Gore the winner by fewer than 400 votes out of about 600,000 cast. And in 2004, President Bush beat John Kerry by about 6,000 votes in the state.Maggie Toulouse Oliver, the clerk of Bernalillo County, which includes Albuquerque, has turned over to law enforcement the 1,400 voter-registration cards that raised suspicions of fraud. Ms. Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat overseeing her first presidential vote, says her office's review of cards works.

"That's 1,400 cards here sitting in a file; they're not entered into the system," she said.

A mile from Ms. Oliver's office, Acorn operates a major New Mexico registration effort. Young workers there worked late one night this week preparing to submit registration forms. Acorn and other groups have registered nearly 80,000 new voters in a drive focused on the state's Democratic-leaning urban areas.

Meanwhile, The Albuquerque Journal reported in August on a forged card for Rebecca Sitterly, a former state District Court judge from Albuquerque who had been voting in the same place for nearly two decades.That card was submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, a controversial nonprofit organization that said it had handled 72,000 new voter registrations in New Mexico from January to mid-September, the Journal reported.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that ACORN and other organizations had registered nearly 80,000 voters in its drive focused on New Mexico's Democratic-leaning urban areas.

Bianca Brown, ACORN's quality-control manager, told the WSJ that employees check each application and have a call center to confirm the information with applicants and that such reviews have caught one person who registered as Batman and another who tried to register 70 times.

ACORN said it has fired about 80 workers in New Mexico since December 2007 over potentially fraudulent registrations, the WSJ reported.

Justine Fox-Young, a Republican state legislator from Albuquerque, told the Wall Street Journal that even if illegal votes are relatively rare, "every fraudulent vote cast cancels out a legitimate one. This is New Mexico, where every election is close."The Republican National Committee is renewing its complaints about registration problems in a year where millions of new voters are being added to the rolls, especially focusing on ACORN, the WSJ reported.

State election officials in Nevada raided ACORN offices on Tuesday over suspicious registrations -- a move ACORN interim chief organizer Bertha Lewis told the Wall Street Journal was a "stunt," saying the group itself had reported suspicious applications to Nevada officials.