posted October 26, 2006 04:45 PM            

This same group destroyed thousands of registration forms for those who registered as Republicans. Those people went away from the ACORN registration drive thinking they had registered and that ACORN would deliver the registration forms to the County Registrar as they were told. Wrong, those Republican forms went in the trash.

This year, ACORN has something new. This year, ACORN is sending in phony change of address forms to the County Registrar. The result of this is that...and I'm betting most of those are Republican registered voters...anyway, these voters will show up at the polls to vote and find they are not on the list of registered voters for that precinct.

This is designed to deny voters the chance to vote and snarl the election process so leftists can claim voter fraud, interference with voters rights to vote...blah, blah, blah.

These are some really contemptible people and I hope to hell they get prosecuted and their sorry as$es parked in a federal prison cell for 3-5 years. This is not political fun and games; this is a federal crime on at least 2 different counts.

If you are a registered voter and you have not received your voter package which usually consists of a sample ballot and a list of voter precinct numbers and addresses from your County Registrar by now, then I would call the County Registrar and check to see if your address has been changed.

Bogus voter-address changes in St. Louis
ST. LOUIS, Oct. 25 (UPI)

Hundreds of bogus address changes have surfaced near St. Louis and the election board is warning voters to make sure they get a polling-place notification card.

If the card does not show up, a voter's address may have been fraudulently changed, the county elections director said.

The bogus address changes are among fraudulent voter-registration cards turning up in St. Louis County within the past couple of months, The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported.

The bogus registrations included at least one dead person, officials said.

Most of the suspicious registrations and address changes were submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, election officials said.

ACORN is under scrutiny for thousands of suspicious voter registrations submitted in St. Louis, which is separate from St. Louis County, and Kansas City.

posted October 29, 2006 10:51 AM              

quote:

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Allegations of fraud cloud ACORN voter drive again
By Jeremy Kohler
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
10/29/2006

ST. LOUIS — The grass-roots political group ACORN became a player in U.S. politics by combing streets, signing new voters and giving a voice to the poor.

Thousands of people in the St. Louis area know ACORN workers as the visitors at the door reminding them to vote. The group is part of a coalition backing an increase in Missouri's minimum wage on the Nov. 7 ballot.

But the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is becoming better known for accusations of voter fraud, a reputation it says is unfair.

The nonprofit group defends itself from similar allegations nearly every election. It's the same story this fall, with thousands of voter registrations turned in by ACORN coming under scrutiny in St. Louis, Denver, Philadelphia and Columbus, Ohio.
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Meanwhile, a longtime ACORN worker in St. Louis who was fired this month is accusing the group of directing its paid workers to go door-to-door to campaign for Senate candidate Claire McCaskill, a Democrat.

The group denies the claim, saying that while no law bars them from supporting a candidate, it has not endorsed McCaskill in her challenge to Sen. Jim Talent, a Republican.

ACORN fired Josephine Perkins this month after a co-worker accused her of swiping a purse at the organization's office, 4304 Manchester Avenue.

Perkins, a longtime city activist who worked for ACORN for 11 years, denies the theft and says her bosses fabricated the charge because she spoke out about what she thought was improper electioneering for McCaskill. The theft of the purse was reported to St. Louis police; no one has been charged.

In a twist, Perkins was hired days later as a temporary worker by the city's Republican elections director, Scott Leiendecker, an outspoken ACORN critic.

"She seemed very sincere," Leiendecker said. "She seemed like someone who was very concerned about the process … they're stating that there was a purse stolen, but I don't believe that was true."

Selisa Washington, from ACORN's St. Louis office, said in an e-mail Friday that the group was "appalled but not surprised" by Perkins' hiring and said the group did not appreciate Leiendecker's "dirty political tricks."

Cards are subpoenaed

What proportion of voter registrations turned in by ACORN were really fraudulent or incomplete was unclear Friday and may remain so until after the election. The U.S. attorney's office has subpoenaed thousands of registration cards flagged by Leiendecker's office as suspicious.

Last week, Leiendecker sent letters to 5,000 voters registered by ACORN, asking them to verify their registrations on the phone and with signatures returned by mail.

Kevin Whalen, a national spokesman for ACORN, criticized the action as "wrong and illegal." Leiendecker "can't make up extra steps just because he doesn't like us," Whalen said.

Leiendecker said indications were that 10 percent to 15 percent of the 5,000 registrations set aside were legitimate.

"I know that we got several individuals who said they did not fill out these cards," he said.

Many of the cards appeared to be signed by the same person, Leiendecker said. The forms included three from dead people and one from a 16-year-old.

ACORN said it had fired three workers behind bogus registrations but says, locally and nationally, it has unfairly become a target for political grandstanding.

Whalen points to Florida, where the group was accused of voter fraud in 2004. A year later, a federal judge ruled that the allegations were baseless and defamatory.

Election officials in St. Louis County found hundreds of bogus registrations. Among them were cards turned in for names that appear to have been copied from the phone book.

Take Robert S. Rothschild Jr. of Richmond Heights. The white pages list him and his wife as Sandy and Susan Rothschild.

The county election board sent a letter last week notifying them of their new registration as Sandy and Susan Rothschild, each female, each with the same birth date.

The card was turned in by ACORN. But who would do that, Rothschild wonders. And why?

"Is someone really going to go to our precinct and try to vote?" Rothschild asked.

"I doubt it very much. Or is this just some sloppy way (for an ACORN worker) to get paid for $8 an hour to make it appear that they're really doing the work they're hired to do?"

Leiendecker said he wonders the same. "It's one of two things," Leiendecker said. "ACORN needs to look at themselves internally, and their management practices. Something is not clicking. Either that or this group is committing fraud."

Perkins says that she knew that at least one ACORN worker was fabricating cards from the phone book and from newspaper obituaries and that she reported it weeks ago.

ACORN's national and local staff has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and has pointed to its successes. In Missouri, the group claims to have helped 90,000 people register to vote and believes that half or more of them will actually cast ballots.

With ''ACORN lady''

In St. Louis, the group allowed a reporter and photographer to follow one of its workers on her rounds.

Ruth Meyer, 53, wore an oversized red T-shirt advocating an initiative to raise Missouri's minimum wage. She walked several blocks of north St. Louis on Thursday with a partner from another group in the minimum-wage coalition.

Under gray skies, she briskly rounded a corner onto the 5100 block of Labadie Avenue.

Outside an apartment building, three men and a woman drinking beers scattered.

"Anyone know Charmaine Jones?" Meyer asked.

Meyer found Jones, 47, in the foyer of the building and urged her to vote for the wage increase.

Similar scenes were repeated that day. People hailed Meyer as "ACORN lady."

Said Jones, "They're nice to let people around here know what's going on."

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