USA Missouri officials suspect fake voter registration

I saw the thread of voter fraud in Hartford. Here in MO there is more....


Missouri officials suspect fake voter registration By BILL DRAPER, Associated Press Writer


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081009/ap_on_el_ge/voter_fraud

Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states.

Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. She said they were bogging down work Wednesday, the final day Missourians could register to vote.

"I don't even know the entire scope of it because registrations are coming in so heavy," Davis said. "We have identified about 100 duplicates, and probably 280 addresses that don't exist, people who have driver's license numbers that won't verify or Social Security numbers that won't verify. Some have no address at all."

The nonpartisan group works to recruit low-income voters, who tend to lean Democratic. Most polls show Republican presidential candidate John McCain with an edge in bellwether Missouri, but Democrat Barack Obama continues to put up a strong fight.

Jess Ordower, Midwest director of ACORN, said his group hasn't done any registrations in Kansas City since late August. He said he was told three weeks ago by election officials that there were only about 135 questionable cards — 85 of them duplicates.

"They keep telling different people different things," he said. "They gave us a list of 130, then told someone else it was 1,000."

FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton said the agency has been in contact with elections officials about potential voter fraud and plans to investigate.

"It's a matter we take very seriously," Patton said. "It is against the law to register someone to vote who does not fall within the parameters to vote, or to put someone on there falsely."

On Tuesday, authorities in Nevada seized records from ACORN after finding fraudulent registration forms that included the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys.

In April, eight ACORN workers in St. Louis city and county pleaded guilty to federal election fraud for submitting false registration cards for the 2006 election. U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said they submitted cards with false addresses and names, and forged signatures.

Ordower said Wednesday that ACORN registered about 53,500 people in Missouri this year. He believes his group is being targeted because some politicians don't want that many low-income people having a voice.

"It's par for the course," he said. "When you're doing more registrations than anyone else in the country, some don't want low-income people being empowered to vote. There are pretty targeted attacks on us, but we're proud to be out there doing the patriotic thing getting people registered to vote."

Republicans are among ACORN's loudest critics. At a campaign stop in Bethlehem, Pa., supporters of John McCain interrupted his remarks Wednesday by shouting, "No more ACORN."

Debbie Mesloh, spokeswoman for the Obama campaign in Missouri, said in an e-mailed statement that the campaign supported any investigation of possible fraud.

According to its national Web site, the group has registered 1.3 million people nationwide for the Nov. 4 election. It also has encountered complaints of fraud stemming from registration efforts in Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada and battleground states like Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina, where new voter registrations have favored Democrats nearly 4 to 1 since the beginning of this year.

Missouri offers 11 electoral votes; the presidential candidates need at least 270 to win the election.

I caught part of an interview this morning with (I think) the state attorney general or district attorney there who was fighting mad about the whole thing. He was a democrat himself.

It's on! -- Voter fraud -- ACORN -- Patrick Fitzgerald on attack?

This is just the over-the-pond beginning. By the time most of you read this, maybe it will be all out over here.

I posted this at 4:32 a.m., and I watched it all unfold online as more info came out -- possible massive investigation. Hedline at Hillary forum on rumors before this story hit in Britain:

"Great Merciful Zeus! Tomorrow could be the start of Fitzmas: rumor in Chicago is Patrick Fitzgerald is investigating ACORN and SoetorObama campaign for RICO violations"

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8:03am UK, Thursday October 09, 2008

James Cheyne, Sky News Online

US election officials believe they have uncovered massive attempted voter fraud less than a month before the country goes to the polls to choose its new president.


US authorities are desperate to stop voter fraud



Eleven separate investigations have now been launched into a voter registration group called the Association of Community Organisations for Reform – or Acorn.

The authorities believe they may have duplicated voter forms, employed convicts to register people and even stolen the names of the American football team the Dallas Cowboys in order to create fake voters.

The suspicions started when authorities in Las Vegas raided the organisation's offices, removing eight computer hard drives and several boxes of documents.

Acorn called the raid "a stunt that serves no useful purpose other than discredit our work".

They suggested the investigations into them were politically motivated.

But the concerns about dodgy election papers started to spread to other states.

Authorities in Indiana said they had concerns about roughly a thousand voters registered by the group there.

And Fox News reporters in the state of Missouri found 10 registration documents with the same name and signature.

Acorn has registered up to 1.3 million voters across the US so far.



It's claimed the Dallas Cowboys were signed up without their knowledge



They have offices in 41 states and Washington DC and focus on low income, African American and Latino communities.

They claim to be a politically neutral organisation but many commentators describe them as left wing.

And their workers have been found guilty of voter fraud in the past.

Last year five Acorn employees were sent to prison in Washington State after they went into the Seattle public library and used records to create 1,800 fake registration documents.

Before the raid in Las Vegas, lawyers acting for the state authorities tracked down former Acorn workers.

They found the group had employed 59 convicts from Nevada prisons who were supposed to be supervised and banned from using the phone or the internet.

One former prisoner named Jason Anderson described many of them as "lazy crack-heads who were not interested in working and just wanted the money".

He went on to say they were required to sign up 20 people to vote each day – but couldn't meet the quota – so they started to ask people in the street to fill out several applications.

In a bizarre twist to the tale, the lawyer who uncovered the evidence – Colin Haynes - is a British citizen and a former London policeman who worked as a detective for 11 years.



Fears over voter registration

The Nevada Secretary of State’s department confirmed his past, telling Sky News: "Yep he's a Brit, he's one of our best."

In the town of Independence, Missouri, there was more evidence of dodgy election papers.

Fox news correspondent Eric Shawn obtained 10 voter registration papers filled out in the name of one person – Monica Ray.

He said: "She has three birthdays and four social security numbers."

And he warned the investigation would become even more serious, adding: "The voter registration forms here that are suspect, will be going to the FBI by the end of the week."

The concern over possible voter fraud may re-ignite the debate about voters being forced to bring identification to the polls.

Civil liberties groups have claimed in the past that such a rule would disadvantage poor and minority voters.

However, former Missouri Senator John Danforth offered a lighter side to the affair.

He explained that voter fraud had been a problem in his state before – but struggled to keep a straight face when he told how a dog had been signed up to vote in the presidential elections four years ago.

Fortunately for BO, Mo is the state where he has the DAs and LEOs pursecuting folks who say nasty things about him. They will do his bidding.