Illegal ACORN Votes Likely Elected Al Franken

Now that most people are recognizing that ACORN is basically a criminal enterprise, its activities are being examined closely all over the country. In Minnesota, the reason why a near-psychotic like Al Franken was elected to the US Senate is now becoming more clear. If only 1% of the 43,000 new voters (all Democratic) registered by ACORN in Minnesota were fraudulent (investigations in other areas indicate nearly 50% of ACORN registrations prove fraudulent), Franken is in office illegally.

It’s not surprising that many patriots are ready to take up arms given how Democrats are ignoring the will of the people on healthcare and the extent of election corruption being uncovered that put them in office.

Worst trouble with ACORN is at the polls

Nationally, its voter registration is often fraudulent. So what about here?

Star Tribune September 26, 2009 (Excerpts)

“It’s worth recalling, however, that ACORN is best-known for its massive voter-registration campaigns, which focus relentlessly on getting Democrats elected in targeted states. Here its record is appalling—and goes to the heart of our democratic electoral system.

In October 2008, ACORN announced triumphantly that it had registered about 1.3 million new voters in 18 battleground states, among them Minnesota. A few weeks later, however, the director of Project Vote—an ACORN affiliate—acknowledged to the New York Times that election officials had rejected about 400,000 of those, for reasons including duplicate registrations, incomplete forms and (in the Times’ words) “fraudulent submissions from low-paid field workers trying to please their supervisors.”

Nothing new here. ACORN’s registration drives “routinely produce fraudulent registrations,” according to a staff report released in July 2009 by the ranking Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The report describes ACORN as “a criminal conspiracy” and details violations ranging from unpaid taxes to a million-dollar embezzlement and cover-up. “To date,” the report says, “nearly 70 ACORN employees have been convicted in 12 states for voter-registration fraud.”

In May 2009, Nevada’s attorney general charged ACORN and two employees with 39 felonies. Authorities raided ACORN offices after complaints about numerous forms with false addresses and names—including the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys. Forty-eight percent of forms turned in were “clearly fraudulent,” according to a Las Vegas election official. ACORN recruited felons living in transitional housing in Las Vegas to act as canvassers and promised illegal bonuses if they signed up more than 20 new voters a day….

ACORN’s practices can make fraud difficult to detect. For example, “at election offices around the country, ACORN workers are famous for waiting until registration deadline to dump thousands of new documents on overworked clerks—making it harder for them to fully vet the registration forms,” according to the New York Post.

As a result, fraud often only comes to light by chance. Fraud “has been discovered by cursory checks or by accident,” John Samples, an election expert at the Cato Institute, told the Post. “There’s a lot more out there to be discovered.”

Here in Minnesota, ACORN has boasted of playing a major role in the 2008 elections. It claims to have registered 43,000 new voters, which it describes as 75 percent of the state’s new registrations. Franken’s margin of victory in the Senate race was razor-thin: 312 votes out of about 3 million cast. And Minnesota’s laws on proof of voter eligibility are notoriously loose. Did ACORN folks pull some fast ones to help get their favorite son Franken elected—a win that handed Democrats the 60-vote, veto-proof majority that they needed to enact their liberal agenda?

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie assures us that Minnesota’s system of voter verification protects electoral integrity.

But here’s an uncomfortable fact: Ritchie himself was endorsed by the now-notorious ACORN and elected with its help.

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Massive Layoffs (at ACORN)

by Matthew Vadum October 2, 2009 BigGovernment.com (Excerpt)

“A credible source claims the embattled left-wing advocacy group ACORN is poised to announce massive staff layoffs but an ACORN spokesman denies this is the case.
A credible source close to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now revealed that the activist network intends to lay off all staff members operating out of its New Orleans headquarters. All information provided by the source to this reporter in the past has turned out to be correct….

My source said that one of the employees to be cashiered in the Crescent City is the daughter of disgraced ACORN founder Wade Rathke. Rathke’s wife, Beth Butler, also works for ACORN but it is unclear at this point if she too will be laid off. Rathke’s son also reportedly is employed by ACORN.

ACORN also plans to lay off two-thirds of its Washington, D.C., staffers as soon as Wednesday of next week, according to the source. Layoffs will also extend to ACORN’s affiliate the ACORN Institute.

The source also revealed that all or most of ACORN’s development staff in the group’s New York City office will soon be laid off if they haven’ been laid off already.

ACORN’s already tarnished image took a major hit last month when BigGovernment.com unveiled undercover sting videos in which ACORN staffers across America were shown advising a pair posing as a pimp and a prostitute on the finer points of avoiding prosecution for prostitution, importation of underage illegal aliens to serve as sex workers, obtaining government grants under false pretenses, and tax evasion.

The adverse publicity generated by the videos and the group’s never-ending scandals is slowly but surely drying up ACORN’s funding sources.” BigGovernment.com