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State Official: "Tony Romo Is Not Registered To Vote in the State of Nevada."
We're starting to get a little more information about the raid on ACORN's Las Vegas offices conducted by Nevada authorities earlier today.
FoxNews.com reports that, according to Bob Walsh, a spokesman with the Nevada Secretary of State's office, the raid was prompted by ongoing complaints that ACORN, which works to register low income voters, was submitting registrations with erroneous information, including non-existent and false names, and duplicates.
But it's still unclear how many of these fraudulent forms were submitted.
Secretary of State Ross Miller told Fox that the flawed registrations included the names of Dallas Cowboys football players. "Tony Romo is not registered to vote in the state of Nevada, and anybody trying to pose as Terrell Owens won't be able to cast a ballot on Nov. 4," Miller said.
Miller added that no ACORN employees or canvassers have been arrested or charged in connection with the raid.
A month ago, state and federal authorities launched a joint task force to investigate voter-fraud complaints.
Josh
Zachary
I seriously doubt anyone was going to try and show up at the polls claiming to be Tony Romo or Terrell Owens.
No, problem here is that vote registration canvassers are paid by what they produce. Sometimes it's per name, sometimes it's per sheet. ACORN, like many other groups, hires canvassers to do this work.
Since the canvassers are subcontractors (and low-paid ones at that) they have an incentive to turn in full sheets of names. Whether they are real or accurate, that's anyone's guess.
This happens every election cycle. And the GOP has been even more guilty of it in many states. Pennsylvania 2006 - Rick Santorum's campaign hired canvassers to petition to get a green candidate on the Senate Ballot. Same predictable result.
Did the USDOJ prosecute? No.
October 7, 2008 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Once again, PLEASE make the distinction between vote fraud (which this is not) and registration fraud (which is mostly harmless).
October 7, 2008 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. It would nice to see a demonstration of intent. The only thing that might have happened was submission of false names.
That does not demonstrate any sort of intent.
October 7, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
What? A street informant heard phony names were appearing on ACORN's lists - and dropped a dime on the group? Is that part of the backstory on this very timely bust? How else would the authorities know? Wonder what the going rate could possibly be for ratting out voter registration fraud. That's a dastardly crime we can be pretty damn sure won't end up on "Cold Case". And why, why, why do I smell "set-up"?
October 7, 2008 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is what happens when the Department of Justice is made up of known criminals.
The Democrats are making a huge mistake in not impeaching Mukasey....but let it go.
I know what it's like to live in a banana republic... because here I am in the biggest one of all.
October 7, 2008 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Would it be paranoia to suspect that some of the problem forms were submitted/filled out by McCain supporters - with the intent of then calling for a raid?
October 8, 2008 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
With the GOP's track record
? ...Not paranoid at all.
October 8, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Paid voter-registration-collectors and paid petition-circulators are a problem everywhere and on both sides of the aisle, and the above commenters are all spot on.
I've gone after paid petition-circulators before, and while you can prove that they broke laws by faking signatures, that does NOT translate to intent by the organization paying them and it certainly does NOT translate to "voter fraud".
I just received an e-mail from the McCain camp yesterday asking for money so that they can do "EMERGENCY VOTER REGISTRATION AND GET-OUT-THE- VOTE EFFORT". Betcha the same problems exist there, and it would sure be nice to see joint state and federal cooperation on raiding them. (By the way, an AZ Republican political consultant(Nathan Sproul) was a main culprit in several states last election cycle.)
October 7, 2008 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
ACORN Statement from Bertha Lewis, Interim Chief Organizer, on today's incident in Las Vegas
"Over the past year, ACORN has worked hard to help over 80,000 people in Clark County register to vote. As part of our nonpartisan voter registration program, we have reviewed all the applications submitted by our canvassers. When we have identified suspicious applications, we have separated them out and flagged them for election officials. We have zero tolerance for fraudulent registrations. We immediately dismiss employees we suspect of submitting fraudulent registrations.
"For the past 10 months, any time ACORN has identified a potentially fraudulent application, we turn that application into election officials separately and offer to provide election officials with the information they would need to pursue an investigation or prosecution of the individual.
"Election officials routinely ignored this information and failed to act. In early July, ACORN asked to meet with election officials to express our concerns that they were not acting on information ACORN had presented to them. ACORN met with Clark County elections officials and a representative of the Secretary of State on July 17th. ACORN pleaded with them to take our concerns about fraudulent applications seriously. One week later, elections officials asked us to provide them with a second copy of what we had previously provided to them. ACORN responded by giving election officials copies of 46 “problem application packages,” which involved 33 former canvassers.
"On September 23, ACORN had received a subpoena dated September 19th requesting information on 15 employees, all of whom had been included in the packages we had previously submitted to election officials. ACORN provided our personnel records on these 15 employees on September 29.
"Today's raid by the Secretary of State’s Office is a stunt that serves no useful purpose other than discredit our work registering Nevadans and distracting us from the important work ahead of getting every eligible voter to the polls."
October 8, 2008 12:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sure, ACORN is the one getting ripped off by fraudulent registrations, but in prior elections, ACORN's insistence on paying for registrations provides the only shard of reality to voter fraud accusations by conservatives. In fact, my impression is these fraudulent registrations really kicked off the conservative campaign to make voter fraud an issue. Just like in 2004, ACORN, I plead with you to stop this! Use volunteers. There's no incentive to fake it. By creating this incentive, you are undermining many efforts to combat voter suppression!
October 8, 2008 2:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
V o l u n t e e r s ! ! !
The ringers would scream that Communists are registering folks then tale tall tales of Marinas style sex workers at Acorn and charge that Acorn is running forced abortion rooms outta their offices . . .
Pay by the hour . . . not by the card instead.
October 8, 2008 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
do we need int'l monitors this election?
October 8, 2008 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is such an obvious ROVE--FBI--COINTELPRO...that any good lawyer will blast holes in the official bogus frameup storyline...louded repeated by the lying scum at FOX NEWS (who seem to be privy to alot of inside info in clear violation of laws that protect the integrity of all open police files).
THIS HAPPENED IN SOUTH DAKOTA...BUT NOT WITH ACORN.
SD AG MARK BARNETT (hotdog GOP Janklow punk cheerleader who happily engaged in violations of the SDCL and Fed prohibition on INTERNET STALKING when BARNETT hassled a target of his oppression when BARNETT put the man's business phone number on the SD AG WEBSITE, so TOM PARSONS would be inundated with phone calls looking for SD AG TO ANSWER???????????????????????).
BARNETT COLLUDED WITH RAPID CITY FBI PUNK MARK "vuke the puke" VUKILICH while happily harassing RICHARD GORDON (SD US Sen TOM DASCHLE'S EX CHIEF OF STAFF, believed by MUELLER to be "organizing a DAschle supported congressional inquiry into MIAMI FBI AGENT TERRY NELSON'S DRUG PIPELINE INTO MONTANA...RACICOT Laundered money into GOP campaigns...MIKE CHUCKIE PETERS did the murders to silence numerous witnesses...PETERS WAS LATER SENT AFTER ME BY BOB MUELLER AT A LUVERNE, MN fast food restaurant????????)
AGAIN...LEAHY, CONYERS and their staff...refuse to contact me about TESTIFYING TRUTHFULLY WITH A POLYGRAPH BEFORE AND AFTER TESTIFYING...requiring no subpoenas, and no votes on subpoenas????
October 8, 2008 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
ACORN turns in the fraudulent cards as they're supposed to. It's the law. They also FLAG these as suspect registrations.
The fraudulent cards turned in by ACORN are the only reason the State KNOWS they're fraudulent...because ACORN turned them in...
October 8, 2008 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
It shouldn't be the job of third parties to register voters in the first place. It should be the duty of states.
October 8, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Daily Kos has a revealing post on this topic. It seems that ACORN tried repeatedly to cooperate with Nevada's voter registration authorities in advance of the raid on ACORN’s office yesterday. This looks like a Republican lead set up. Check it out.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/8/10526/3244/637/623819
October 8, 2008 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink