Free Republic

......What do you get when you combine lax caucus rules with bare-knuckle Chicago politics? Caucus fraud – which was rampant, many of the pro-Hillary groups opposing Obama’s nomination allege. A 98-page report that documents and analyses the caucuses held in 14 states, including CO, HI, IA, KS and MN cites numerous examples of voter disenfranchisement, intimidation and fraud:

CLEVELAND -- A national organization that conducts voter registration drives for low-income people has curtailed its push in Cuyahoga County after the Board of Elections accused its workers of submitting fraudulent registration cards. The board is investigating the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Results of the inquiry could be turned over to the county prosecutor. Board employees said ACORN workers often handed in the same name on a number of voter registration cards, but showing that person living at different addresses. Other times, cards had the same name listed, but a different date of birth. Still another sign...

Criminal charges were dismissed Monday against Jane Balogh, the Federal Way woman who registered her dog to vote — but not without a hiccup along the way. King County District Court Judge Mariane Spearman dropped a misdemeanor charge of making a false or misleading statement to a public servant, based on Balogh's completion of the terms of a plea agreement reached in September 2007. Balogh, 67, a grandmother and Army veteran, paid $240 in court costs and completed 10 hours of community service at the Tacoma Rescue Mission.

New Mexico Republicans are angry that Secretary of State Mary Herrera hired U.S. Senate candidate Tom Udall's son-in-law to head the state Elections Bureau. The new director, Jim Noel, is married to Udall's wife's daughter, Amanda Cooper. Cooper is managing the Northern New Mexico congressman's campaign against Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce for the seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. Noel, currently executive director of the state Judicial Standards Commission, starts his new job Sept. 8. "The hiring of Tom Udall's son-in-law as state elections director is a stunning conflict of interest," spokeswoman Shira Rawlinson said...

Clovis native Rebecca Sitterly registered to vote soon after returning to her native state in 1979 and jumped right into Democratic politics about the same time. So the former Bernalillo County district judge was surprised to get a July 3 call from a community nonprofit that was checking on her new registration. When Sitterly said she hadn't filled out a registration form (indeed, she'd been regularly voting in the same place on Mountain Road NW in Albuquerque for nearly 20 years) a supervisor with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now promised to destroy the card, Sitterly said in...

LAGOS - Nigeria's anti-corruption police were questioning the head of the stock exchange after she organised a gala dinner in support of Barack Obama's U.S. presidential campaign which raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now for services the Democrat's campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports. An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. -- a subsidiary of ACORN -- worked in "get-out-the-vote" projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary.

Milwaukee’s election chief on Wednesday turned 32 more voter registration workers in to the district attorney’s office for possible prosecution, saying they tried to submit falsified registration cards. That brings to 39 the number of registration workers under scrutiny, and the number could grow, Election Commission Executive Director Sue Edman said. An organization warned the commission staff late Wednesday afternoon about some questionable cards in the latest batch collected by its workers, Edman said. Of the 32 ACORN workers referred Wednesday to Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf, Edman said:

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20, 2008, 6:18 p.m. By Larry Sandler City refers 32 more to DA for voter fraud Milwaukee's election chief turned 32 more voter registration workers in to the district attorney's office for possible prosecution today, after they tried to submit falsified registration cards. That brings to 39 the number of registration workers under scrutiny, and the number could grow, Election Commission Executive Director Sue Edman said. An organization warned the commission staff late this afternoon about some questionable cards in the latest batch collected by its workers, Edman said. All of the workers targeted for investigation were paid...

REST ASSURED, Philadelphia. Come Election Day, there will be street money. According to U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, the local Democratic Party chairman, Sen. Barack Obama's general-election presidential campaign in Philadelphia will be run different from his primary operation, which relied more on volunteers than on Democratic ward leaders and did not provide street money on Election Day. "We're not going to pay for votes or pay for turnout," Obama said before the Pennsylvania primary.

Irrefutable evidence indicates that Obama’s campaign has been doing business with CSI, which appears to have been operating fraudulently in the State of Maryland and Ohio, and ACORN, which has been associated with a laundry list of fraudulent business practices. The full nature of the relationship between ACORN and Citizens Services Inc is not known but this much is clear: both share the same address in New Orleans and officials with CSI refer folks to ACORN for questions about “political consulting” and Get-Out-The-Vote” activities. These are questions that mainstream media should examine.

Lake County prosecutors have announced grand jury indictments against two campaign workers for Democratic state Senator Terry Link of Waukegan on charges of forgery and perjury. The indictments announced against Jerry D. Knight, 40, of Zion and Kenneth Davison, 50, of Waukegan allege the men included the names of dead voters on Link's nominating petitions. Knight faces 11 perjury counts and one forgery count. Davison is indicted on nine perjury counts and two forgery counts. All are felonies.

Workers from a second activist organization have been implicated in falsifying Milwaukee voter registration forms, bringing to 15 the number of voter registration workers who could face scrutiny for trying to sign up dead, imprisoned or fictitious voters, according to the Milwaukee Election Commission and the organizations that paid the workers. For two of the workers, managers at the Community Voters Project caught much of the fraud, fired the workers and reported the problems before the registration cards were turned in, said Sue Edman, the election commission’s executive director, and Ayodele Carroo, the organization’s national director. That involved 15 or...

<p>COLUMBUS, Ohio- Ohio is considered a must-win state for both Barack Obama and John McCain. And the highpoint of the presidential campaign in the state could come a month before Election Day.</p> <p>Ohio has created a window in the election calendar, from September 30th to October 6th, that allows residents to both register one minute and vote the next.</p>

Workers from a second activist organization have been implicated in falsifying Milwaukee voter registration forms, bringing to 15 the number of voter registration workers who could face scrutiny for trying to sign up dead, imprisoned or fictitious voters, according to the Milwaukee Election Commission and the organizations that paid the workers. For two of the workers, managers at the Community Voters Project caught much of the fraud, fired the workers and reported the problems before the registration cards were turned in, said Sue Edman, the election commission’s executive director, and Ayodele Carroo, the organization’s national director. That involved 15 or...

A new study released by the conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation provides proof that illegal aliens and immigrants with green cards are committing rampant voter fraud in the United States. Reports of ineligible persons registering to vote have raised concerns about state processes for verifying voter registration lists. States usually base voter eligibility on the voter’s age, US citizenship, mental competence, and felon status. Although individual states run elections, Congress has authority to affect the administration of the elections. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) had set a deadline for states to have a statewide voter registration...

ACORN Cracks Wide Open Carl Horowitz Saturday, August 09, 2008 The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, is a network of nonprofit community groups formed nearly 40 years ago on the premise that banks, corporations and insurance companies, immersed in greed, have kept poor and predominantly minority neighborhoods desperate. Within the past couple months, however, its leaders have been engaged in the more mundane task of spinning a scandal that already has claimed its most visible leader. To longtime ACORN critics, it’s a case of belated just deserts. At the center of this storm are ACORN co-founder...

Some of the nation's largest labor organizations are calling for legalization of all the nation's undocumented workers and have conceded the guest worker issue. "There is no good reason why any immigrant who comes to this country prepared to work, to pay taxes, and to abide by our laws and rules should be denied what has been offered to immigrants throughout our country's history -- a path to legal citizenship," said Ana Avendano, assistant general counsel for the AFL-CIO, which represents 53 unions nationally. The AFL-CIO and the Change to Win coalition, collectively representing about 15 million workers, or about...

ACORN Watch: Voter fraud and mortgage scams on your dime By Michelle Malkin  •  August 7, 2008 12:41 PM Barack Obama’s taxpayer-subsidized old friends at ACORN have been very, very busy lately. And ACORN Watch is here to give you the rundown on all the latest shenanigans on your dime. * In Milwaukee, election officials are investigating fake names registered by ACORN workers– a favorite voter fraud 101 ploy of ACORN workers. No word on whether anyone used “Fruto Boy Crispila:” Criminal investigations could be launched against at least six voter registration workers who tried to add dead, imprisoned or imaginary people...

Arguing that the current electronic voting systems across the U.S. are fundamentally flawed and, worse, being gamed for political gain, "Stealing America: Vote by Vote" functions as an organizing tool for people worked up about the important issue, but is hardly suitable as a commercial doc release. Pic's classroom-style presentation and wooden filmmaking can be ignored by eager activists, but will surely bore audiences in theaters (a limited rollout began Aug. 1). Homevid sales, though, look to enjoy a boomlet close to election season. Director-producer Dorothy Fadiman summons a large group of experts, observers and activists (and no less a...

MADISON, Wis. -- Workers registering voters for a liberal group in Milwaukee turned in hundreds of fabricated registration forms and many more that were incomplete. That's raised fears among Republican Party leaders of an election fraud repeat. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, has fired about a dozen canvassers and alerted the state election commission to most of the problem forms. Commission director Sue Edman said they'll make sure no fabricated or incomplete forms are entered into the voter database. Six of the former ACORN workers have been referred to the Milwaukee County district attorney's office...

KRQE Channel 13 in Albuquerque aired this disturbing report about criminals, including child rapists, persons convicted of fraud and forgery, and drug dealers, being hired by ACORN to solicit voter registrations: The litany convictions and charges against these individuals is long and this story is not the first problem for ACORN this year nationally or in New Mexico. In June the Dona Ana County Clerk warned citizens about registering with third party groups. Across the country states like Arizona, Arkansas Louisiana, Nevada, Virginia, Wisconsin and others have warned citizens about registering with and providing sensitive personal information to groups like...

<p>RICHMOND (AP) | The chairman of Virginia's Republican Party on Monday sought a statewide probe of what he said was voter registration fraud across a battleground state in this year's presidential race.</p> <p>The chairman, Delegate Jeffrey M. Frederick, Prince William Republican, decried a "widespread problem across the commonwealth" after the arrests of three people last week in Hampton on election fraud charges. He urged Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, and Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell, a Republican, to begin a statewide investigation.</p>

Virginia GOP Chairman calls for criminal investigation into mounting evidence of coordinated voter fraud activities 7/28/2008 11:05:00 AM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Richmond, Virginia (July 28, 2008) – Delegate Jeff Frederick, Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, this morning called on Governor Kaine and Attorney General McDonnell to open a thorough and rigorous investigation into what appears to be coordinated and widespread voter fraud activities occurring throughout Virginia. Frederick’s request is in response to a report last week of three individuals in Hampton, Virginia being arrested and charged with voter registration fraud, a Class 5 Felony, as well as reports...

(Porn star Alexia Moore performs on stage ... ... and hurries out of court Friday night.) (Louis Posner) Teams of vice cops swooped down and busted a posh midtown strip club that catered to stockbrokers and bankers - and featured porn stars who charged $5,000 for private trysts. Prominent tax lawyer Louis Posner; his wife, Betty; and 19 others were arrested on a variety of prostitution and money-laundering charges at The Hot Lap Dance Club, which the couple ran out of a velvet-heavy loft, police said. Cops said Posner raked in $1 million over the last 10 months from the...

Todd Stuart McGuire, a longtime Jefferson County Democratic Party supporter, was charged July 2 with voter fraud. He's accused of either repeating a vote or impersonating his wife, Rebekah, by casting her ballot in a Feb. 6, 2007, special election. Both charges are Class C felonies and carry a maximum penalty of five years in jail and/or a $10,000 fine, according to charging documents. Neither the McGuires nor Todd McGuire's attorney Ben Critchlow could be reached for comment last week or Monday. Todd McGuire is scheduled to appear in Jefferson County Superior Court at 8:30 a.m. Friday, July 18. The...

......far-left radical activist group ACORN is embroiled in financial corruption and cover-up.... The NY Times reports that Dale Rathke - whose brother started the group back in 1970 to help low-income people - embezzled nearly $1M back in 1999 and 2000. ACORN disguised it on the books as a loan and let Rathke's family make restitution at $30,000 a year. (An anonymous donor reportedly has agreed to pick up the remaining $800,000 tab.) ACORN also kept Rathke on the payroll at $38,000-a-year.....the Times reports most of the people who covered-up the embezzlement are still working for ACORN. Michelle Malkin wrote...

Amid all the talk of new voters becoming involved in the election, hopefully one group of voters will not vote in November — non-citizens, many of whom are illegally registered to vote all over the country, particularly in the southwest. Although there is no reliable method to determine the exact number registered aliens, there is evidence that this is a significant and growing problem. The Government Accountability Office estimated that up to 3 percent of individuals called for jury duty from voter registration rolls in just one U.S. district court were not U.S. citizens. While that may not seem like...

NONPROFIT MALFEASANCE [NYTimes]: Two prominent national nonprofit groups are reeling from public disclosures that large sums of money were misappropriated in unrelated incidents by an employee and a former employee. The groups, Acorn, one of the country’s largest community organizing groups, and the Points of Light Institute, which works to encourage civic activism and volunteering, have dealt with the problems in very different ways. Acorn chose to treat the embezzlement of nearly $1 million eight years ago as an internal matter and did not even notify its board. After Points of Light noticed financial irregularities in early June, it took...

Louisiana's top election official has launched an investigation into a voter registration drive by the Washington-based Voting is Power organization, which is sponsored by the Muslim American Society and was hired by Democrats, after registrars were "flooded" with fake forms, including a couple for a gentleman named George W. Bush. Secretary of State Jay Dardenne said this week he already has met with Voting Is Power, which has a stated goal of signing up millions of Muslims to vote in U.S. elections, and the discussions were cordial. He said he's seeking information about the company's methodology and information on why...

A group hired by the Democratic Party to register voters is in trouble for vote fraud in Louisiana: State probes voter registration drive — Baton Rouge, LA. Secretary of State Jay Dardenne said Tuesday he will meet today with a Democrat-affiliated group responsible for a voter registration effort that is inundating East Baton Rouge and other parish registrars with bogus and incomplete applications. Dardenne said his investigators are trying to determine if any state election laws have been violated as thousands of voter registration cards have been dumped on registrars offices through the efforts of VIP. “We have some very...

The government of the Netherlands has banned electronic voting machines from future elections because of a risk of eavesdropping. The nation will return to paper voting. "Research indicates that a secure voting machine that is immune to the risks of eavesdropping can't be guaranteed. Developing new equipment furthermore requires a large investment, both financially and in terms of organization. The administration judges that this offers insufficient added value over voting by paper and pencil," the Ministry of Internal Affairs said Friday evening. In its decision, the government also banned so-called voting printers. Because they leave a paper trail, the printers...

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote. The measure would allow far more rigorous demands than the voter ID requirement recently upheld by the Supreme Court, in which voters had to prove their identity with a government-issued card. Sponsors of the amendment — which requires the approval of voters to go into effect, possibly in an August referendum — say it is part of an effort to prevent illegal immigrants from affecting...

DNC Superdelegate Puts His Vote Up For Sale Steven Ybarra Wants $20 Million For His Vote SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CBS13) ― In this tight battle for the Democratic nomination we've heard a lot about the candidates courting superdelegates. But, one superdelegate is courting the candidates. He says he'll sell his vote for a price. A very high price: $20 million. Steven Ybarra of Sacramento says that eight-figure price is peanuts for the presidency.

Florida is courting electoral trouble. Heading toward another presidential election, state officials are making it increasingly difficult for citizens to vote. Thanks to state laws, national election experts are warning that Florida is one of the hardest places to vote. Recent court decisions and a lamentable move by Secretary of State Kurt Browning could make matters worse. The potential result: Thousands of eligible Florida voters -- many of them poor, black and Hispanic -- will be prevented from having a voice in the November election. Fining third parties Among the objectionable election laws, one chills voter-registration drives by imposing fines...

FACING SOUTH EXCLUSIVE: D.C. nonprofit aimed at women voters behind deceptive N.C. robo-calls Chris Kromm Facing South Who's behind the mysterious "robo-calls" that have spread misleading voter information and sown confusion and frustration among North Carolina residents over the last week? Facing South has confirmed the source of the calls, and the mastermind is Women's Voices Women Vote, a D.C.-based nonprofit which aims to boost voting among "unmarried women voters." What's more, Facing South has learned that the firestorm Women's Voices has ignited in North Carolina isn't the group's first brush with controversy. Women's Voices' questionable tactics have spawned thousands...

April 30, 2008, 6:00 a.m. Voters Are Far from the Biggest LosersLife after Crawford. By Abigail Thernstrom For one of the most anticipated big decisions of the current Supreme Court term, the Indiana voter-ID ruling Monday is certainly a bit anti-climactic. No big deal, Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the lead opinion, said, in essence. The Indiana law requires citizens, before voting, to show an approved photo identification — a passport or driver’s license, for instance. “There is no question about the legitimacy or importance of the State’s interest in counting only the votes of eligible voters,� Stevens concluded....

THE WASHINGTON TIMES EDITORIAL - Monday's 6-3 Supreme Court decision upholding Indiana's voter-identification law has unhinged Democrats and their allies on the political left. Within hours of the ruling, the ACLU was wringing its hands about the judgment of the court that requires someone to produce photo identification in order to vote was not unconstitutional. Sen. Charles Schumer, New York Democrat, complained that it was "a body blow to what America stands for — equal access to the polls." But a careful reading of the opinions of the six justices who voted to uphold the Indiana law shows this assertion...

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court -- in a shock 6-3 decision (shocking because Justice John Paul Stevens was on the side of the angels!) -- held that states could indeed require voters to show photo-ID before voting... causing Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY, 90%) to eructate, "This decision is a body blow to what America stands for -- equal access to the polls" (for senior citizens, minorities, and the poor... most of whom, apparently, carry no identification). The Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter-identification law on Monday, declaring that a requirement to produce photo identification is not unconstitutional and that the state...

Showing ID to vote? The horror. Seattle Post-Intelligencer runs whiny AP writer's complaint about Indiana voter law What is it with Democrats and showing ID at the polls? This article from an AP national writer certainly doesn't fit any reasonable standard for a wire service. It's just short of a screed, with no balance...just a minor jeremiad against asking people to show ID at the polls: The Supreme Court's refusal to strike down an Indiana law requiring government-issued photo identification at the ballot box could disenfranchise minority and elderly voters at next week's primary and prompt other states to pass...

During a segment on Monday’s "The Situation Room," host Wolf Blitzer and CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena framed the Supreme Court decision upholding Indiana’s "strict" voter ID law according to the liberal view (a law so "strict" that it calls for the voter show photo ID before voting). Arena’s report offered three critics of the decision to only one supporter, who happened to be Indiana’s Secretary of State. One of the three critics was a quadriplegic who apparently "had to pay more than $100 to get documentation to prove who she was" before getting an ID in Indiana. After Arena’s...

Congressional Democrats and minority groups assailed Monday’s Supreme Court decision upholding Indiana’s photo-ID law as an affront to voting rights, but political realities in the states suggest that the ruling could have relatively limited impact nationwide. Only three states — Indiana, Florida and Georgia — currently require voters to show government-issued photo IDs before stepping into the voting booth. Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas are considering similar requirements, but it’s not clear whether they can adopt them before the November elections. Democratic insiders fear that a number of states, particularly in the Midwest and South, will copy the Indiana law now...

CRAWFORD v. MARION COUNTY ELECTION BD. (Nos. 07-21 and 07-25) Web-accessible at:     http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-21.ZS.html  Argued: January 9, 2008 -- Decided: April 28, 2008* Opinion author: Stevens ===============================================================   After Indiana enacted an election law (SEA 483) requiring citizens voting in person to present government-issued photo identification, petitioners filed separate suits challenging the law's constitutionality. Following discovery, the District Court granted respondents summary judgment, finding the evidence in the record insufficient to support a facial attack on the statute's validity. In affirming, the Seventh Circuit declined to judge the law by the strict standard set for poll taxes in Harper v....

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter identification law on Monday, concluding in a splintered decision that the challengers failed to prove that the law’s photo ID requirement placed an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote. The 6-to-3 ruling kept the door open to future lawsuits that provided more evidence. But this theoretical possibility was small comfort to the dissenters or to critics of voter ID laws, who predicted that a more likely outcome than successful lawsuits would be the spread of measures that would keep some legitimate would-be voters from the polls. Voting experts said the ruling...

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Monday to uphold a strict Indiana law requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls, handing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) a serious setback days before a pivotal primary battle. (snip) Obama, however, will face a significant disadvantage in Indiana because the high court failed to strike down a law that affects two major pillars of support: black voters and young voters. Indiana requires that voters present state or federal government-issued photo identification on Election Day. But a recent study conducted by the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity and Race found that 18...

Elections: The Supreme Court got it right Monday in ruling 6-3 (with even liberal John Paul Stevens agreeing) that states are free to require voters to produce photo identification at the polls.Everyone in the country should be pleased with the news. But, of course, not everyone is. It's almost as if some are disturbed that the ruling will make it harder to commit voter fraud. The American Civil Liberties Union, for instance. It was the ACLU's suit against the state of Indiana over its requirement that voters need to produce a photo ID at the polls that led to the...

The Supreme Court's refusal to strike down an Indiana law requiring government-issued photo identification at the ballot box could disenfranchise minority and elderly voters at next week's primary and prompt other states to pass similar laws, voting advocates said Monday. The court, in a splintered 6-3 ruling Monday, said Indiana's law, which took effect in 2006 and requires voters to present a state or federal photo ID card at the ballot box, does not violate the First or 14th amendments. The court said the law served as a justifiable protection to the electoral process. "It's especially worrisome that the court...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has ruled that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights. The decision validates Republican-inspired voter ID laws. The court vote 6-3 to uphold Indiana's strict photo ID requirement. Democrats and civil rights groups say the law would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 04/28/2008 Pelosi Statement on Supreme Court Decision on Voter ID Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement in response to the Supreme Court’s decision today on Indiana’s voter identification case: “The Supreme Court’s decision is disappointing. The Court’s decision today places obstacles to the fundamental rights of American citizens—especially the poor, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities—to participate in the electoral process. Requiring American citizens pay for underlying documents needed for an identification card and travel to distant motor vehicle locations for processing hinders—and diminishes—their right to...

A Democratic lawmaker admits he voted for absent House members to give a bill to remove the state sales tax on food the margin it needed to pass. Representative Randy Hinshaw of Meridianville said Wednesday he was only doing what was best for his House district ... Hinshaw declined to say how many machines he voted or which members he voted for. He would say only, "I voted some members' machines around me."