Gregory D.

Lee

Read Greg's bio and previous columns here

October 17, 2008

Obama Needs His ACORN Cracked

The “Community Organization” that Sen. Barack Obama worked for and defended as its legal counsel, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, is finally having light shined on its corrupt practices.

By the way, ACORN has endorsed Sen. Obama, as if that is a surprise to anyone.

The FBI and state prosecutors are currently investigating ACORN for fraudulent voter registration in at least 14 states. We’re not talking about a few wayward voter registration cards being filed, but a systematic pattern of thousands of them being obviously fake. Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, Jive Turkey and the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys have all been registered to vote by ACORN employees.

Wouldn’t you think that if you’re goal is to fraudulently register unqualified or non-existent voters, you would at least be smart enough to select legitimate sounding names? This illustrates the character and mores of many of Sen. Obama’s most adamant supporters.

I’m guessing ACORN’s voter registration thugs’ imaginations ran dry for names, so they began to harass and bribe real living people to register themselves multiple times. The New York Post reported that one young man in Cincinnati alone admitted to filing voter registration cards 72 times. "Sometimes, they come up and bribe me with a cigarette, or they'll give me a dollar to sign up," said the 19-year-old black man who wore a backward baseball cap. The man told ACORN representatives that he had already registered, but this didn’t stop them from continuing to solicit him to register again.

Wouldn’t you think that if your goal was to boost the numbers of Democrats in a particular voting district, you might get caught if you register the same person 72 times? This illustrates the brainpower of many Sen. Obama supporters.

According to the same article, there was a case in Connecticut where a seven-year-old girl was registered to vote.

Wouldn’t you think that an election official at a polling place might question the legitimacy of someone, obviously under the age of 18, if she showed up to vote? This tells me that ACORN has succeeded in registering every adult Sen. Obama supporter and cartoon character there is as Democrats. There’s no one left to bribe or intimidate.

Last April, eight ACORN workers in St. Louis city and county pled guilty to federal election fraud for submitting false registration cards for the 2006 election. Jess Ordower, ACORN’s Midwest director, said, “It's par for the course. 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."

I hate to be the one to break it to Mr. Ordower, but committing voter fraud and stealing elections are not things patriots do.   

Mr. Ordower said that ACORN registered about 53,500 people in Missouri this year. That’s a pretty scary thought, considering the organization’s well deserved reputation for engaging in voter fraud. If you divide 53,500 by 72, the number of times the guy in New York registered, you would only need 743 people willing to do the same thing. It would probably take 15 minutes and 38 cartons of cigarettes to find those many people willing to complete multiple Missouri voter registration cards.  

All of this demonstrates the need for a federal uniform standard for voter registration; one that can be crosschecked among states. Besides being at least 18 years old, a person needs to personally appear at a voter registration office, present valid government identification, prove citizenship and have his photo taken so it can appear in a voter registration database for later comparison. No more same day, motor-voter or registering by mail or by special interest groups. No more paid ACORN employees standing in front of liquor stores, signing up thousands of people, and then dumping all of the registration cards on the registrar of voters office at 4 p.m. the last day they are accepted for an upcoming election. For the convenience of our “low-income” community, mobile registration vans could visit these areas of their jurisdiction to facilitate the process. No one would be left out or disenfranchised except the frauds.

ACORN has been around 30 years and claims to be non-partisan. Democratic politicians have funneled tax money to it all this time to help fund its left-wing agenda. ACORN’s involvement in the subprime mortgage lending mess has not yet been fully uncovered.

ACORN is a nut that needs to be cracked and fed to the birds.

Gregory D. Lee is a nationally syndicated columnist for North Star Writers Group. He can be reached through is website: www.gregorydlee.com.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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