Why do these people need help registering to vote? It doesn't cost anything and doesn't take much time. So the only logical explanation, is that the people behind ACORN have an ulterior motive of putting democrats in office. Which would be fine except for the part about getting tax dollars to do it.

hmmm interesting you bring that up. I believe Rove's programs did that for Bush in 2000 and 2004...Helping bringing the base to register and to the vote.
Maybe the democrats learned something there.

Oh, please?! Do you think that they the republicans were out giving inner city kids cigs and beer to sign up?

A story I read said ACORN hired a number of unemployed people (in Nevada I think) and these workers were paid by the number of people they registered. So, it was very productive to sit with an open phone book or simply fabricate names. I don't think this has the makings of a voting scandal. Like some tree planters I know who were paid by the number of seedlings planted and managed to plant them all in one big hole and then take a break. The Republicans do have a legitimate fear with a registered populace.

HAha, awesome, the conspriacy deepens!. Democrats are giving inner city kids cigs and beer to sign up.

A yawn on the most sacred right we have, the right to vote in an honest political election.

Max I really thought you were made of better stuff.

Oh for Christ's sake. You know perfectly well he wasn't dumping on the right to vote. I KNOW you are made of better stuff than that, gutz.

Ok so cigarettes and cash, sorry.

From WNBC in New York

"The bipartisan Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Cleveland voted unanimously Monday to ask Prosecutor Bill Mason to investigate multiple registrations by four people, including 19-year-old Freddie Johnson.

All four said they signed forms at the behest of a community organizing group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform, known as ACORN.

Johnson said he was trying to help paid ACORN solicitors collect signed registrations. He said he has not voted, and said he filled out the cards because he was given cigarettes and about $20."

Sorry Loos your party is known for this stuff, it's the only way they can survive.

And by the way requiring photo ID is only policy in a few areas.

I suppose we both know each others parties' dirty secrets and unfortunately neither of us really knows our own.
Voter registration is a good thing and I'm afraid you still can't pass for Mickey Mouse.
Here's something interesting

Crist breaks with Republicans over ACORN voter fraud charges
BY MARC CAPUTO
mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com

TALLAHASSEE -- Breaking with the talking points of his fellow Republicans in Washington, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said he does not think voter fraud and the vote-registration group ACORN are a major problem in the Sunshine State.

''I think that there's probably less [fraud] than is being discussed. As we're coming into the closing days of any campaign, there are some who enjoy chaos,'' Crist told reporters.

Crist made his comments as the Republican National Committee hosted a conference call with reporters to tie Democrat Barack Obama to suspicious voter-registration cards submitted by ACORN across the nation and in four Florida counties, including Broward.

In the Broward case, an unknown person attempted to re-register a longtime voter named Susan S. Glenckman. Broward officials caught the error in August when it was brought to their attention by ACORN.

During the Wednesday Republican conference call, national party spokesman Danny Diaz focused more on a case out of Orange County, in which someone used an ACORN-stamped voter-registration card to sign up Mickey Mouse.

But Crist's Republican Secretary of State, Kurt Browning, said he doesn't think ACORN is committing systematic voter fraud. And Crist said that settles the matter because ''I have enormous confidence'' in Browning.

Like ACORN spokesmen, Browning says the false voter registration forms could be blamed on unethical canvassers or on citizens who themselves fill out fictitious voter cards.

REGISTERING VS. VOTING

Elections officials point out that while voter-registration fraud is relatively easy, vote fraud is far more difficult because a criminal would have to evade multiple layers of computer-system and identity checks. They also say the system is not overwhelmed with phony registrations, as Diaz suggested during the conference call.

ACORN's head Florida organizer, Brian Kettenring, went a step further, saying the group was being framed in the Mickey Mouse case -- though he wasn't sure who was behind it.

''It's reasonable to assume that there's a strong possibility this is a set-up,'' Kettenring said. ``We have a substantial reason to believe someone probably got one of our cards and submitted it to the elections office without us knowing.''

But Diaz, the national Republican spokesman, said Wednesday that there is no way ACORN is a victim, considering ''the volume'' of registration-fraud complaints and investigations in numerous states.

''When you sign the Dallas Cowboys in Nevada, Mickey Mouse in Florida, a 7-year-old girl in Connecticut,'' Diaz said, ``their argument that this is all some kind of a conspiracy is laughable on its face.''

Diaz, echoing previous statements from the party and John McCain's campaign, said Obama hasn't been honest about his links to ACORN.

Obama told reporters Tuesday that Republicans are engaging in distractions. He said his campaign has nothing to do with ACORN and that ACORN is probably the victim of lazy card gatherers or card signers who make up names or fraudulently fill out registration cards.

ACORN submits all registration cards -- even ones it knows are phony -- because it's illegal to destroy the cards in Florida, and Browning said the group should even turn in incomplete registration cards.

REJECTED

Kettenring said the group has quality-control checks to alert officials of suspicious cards. Although it flagged the Glenckman problem in Broward, ACORN never saw the Mickey Mouse card, Kettenring said. So ACORN smells a rat. So did Orange election officials, who rejected it out of hand at the time.

A housing, poverty and wage advocacy group, ACORN stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. It has signed up more than 150,000 new Florida voters out of the 1.3 million it registered in the past two years nationwide.

The group has pointed out that before it became expedient for Republican presidential candidate John McCain to attack ACORN, he had supported and praised the group. McCain attacked the group at Wednesday's debate, and pointed out that Obama's campaign had paid an ACORN affiliate more than $830,000 for get-out-the-vote efforts.

Echoing Browning and other county elections supervisors, Mary Cooney, a spokeswoman for Broward County Election Supervisor Brenda Snipes, said the office had a good working relationship with ACORN.

But Cooney said the office began tracking ACORN registrations after noticing about 10 percent of the 16,000 registration cards it submitted were returned by the post office as undeliverable. In 80 percent of those cases, she said, the elections office couldn't find the registrant.

Cooney said the returned mail wasn't suspicious, but it was worthy of note. Cooney said that, if the office had suspected real fraud, it would have turned the matter over to the state attorney's office. But it didn't.

Obama had downplayed his ties to ACORN on his ''fight the smears'' website, saying that his most extensive work with ACORN was when he represented the group along with the U.S. Justice Department in a lawsuit. Turns out, he also trained some ACORN community organizers at a seminar, so Obama's website was changed to reflect that he was never ''hired'' as a trainer.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis made much of that in a conference call last week, urging reporters to ask Obama: ``What were you teaching them? Were you teaching them how to evade the law?''

Davis also said anyone who believes ACORN isn't up to something bad is ``naive.''

But the day before, when Gov. Crist was asked if he had any suspicions or evidence that ACORN was up to anything illegal or unethical, he gave a quick and brief reply: ``No.''

Miamiherald

*shrug*

Voter fraud, while real and very troubling(and the only logical reason for voter-registration fraud), is not what I was talking about. I'm talking about an organization receiving federal/state money and using that money to help elect Democrats! The government should not be supporting one party or the other, yet we keep seeing examples of tax dollars being used to elect democrats.
I am not ok with that!

Oct. 13) -- Federal, state, and local officials are gathering information about allegations of voter registration fraud that were first raised Channel 8 Eyewitness News.

An employee of a private voter registration firm alleges that his bosses trashed registration forms filled out by Democratic voters because they only wanted to sign up Republican voters.

The allegations have set off a political firestorm stretching from Las Vegas to Washington D.C., and beyond.

As with everything else in this election year, it's now become a political football being tossed between the two parties, with charges and countercharges, but at its core, there still remains the matter of registration forms that were ripped up and tossed in the trash.

Who did it, and why? That's what official agencies will try to determine. On Tuesday afternoon, Las Vegan Eric Russell and his girlfriend took a packet of documents to the Las Vegas FBI office but left before filing a formal complaint about what Russell says was a deliberate effort to disenfranchise local voters.

Russell worked for a company called Voters Outreach of America, along with 300 other people. He says he got into a beef with the company over a pay dispute, and witnessed his bosses ripping up registration forms that had been filed by democrats.

"They were thrown away in the trash. I grabbed them out," said Eric Russell. One of those forms belonged to Daren Gray, who was shocked to learn that the re-registration form he filled out was never turned in.

"I'm pretty mad, upset. I'm still gonna vote," said Daren Gray. Russell doesn't know how many democratic registrations were tossed in the trash but guesses the number could be very high since Voters Outreach of America operated in Las Vegas for more than two months.

The FBI confirms that it is gathering information about the case but stopped short of calling it an investigation, saying it wants to talk to Russell again. Secretary of State Dean Heller issued a statement that his office is also taking a look, trying to figure out what if any laws might have been violated.

Nevada Democrats came out swinging Wednesday. "Most disturbing is that Voter Outreach of America is being paid by the National Republican Party and we ask how can people have faith in government if a national party is involved in trickery in depriving people the right to vote," said Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates.

The Republican National Committee acknowledges that it hired Voters Outreach of America to register voters, but in a statement said it had zero tolerance for any kind of fraud.

Local party officials said there is no way the GOP would instruct the company to trash democratic registrations. However, similar problems have been alleged elsewhere. In Washoe County, the registrar says he too has turned over information to the FBI about Republican backed registration efforts.

In Oregon, the same company that was operating here has been criticized for its tactics in signing up voters. There, it used the name America Votes, which is actually the name of a Democratic organization.

Employees in Las Vegas say they too were told that the name of the company was America Votes. "They confused us with the name. They told us one thing and told the temp force something else. They told us America Votes," Russell said.

So, why has this company used the name of a Democratic organization as it signs up voters here and in Oregon? It's a question Eyewitness News is investigating.

In the meantime, Eric Russell is about to learn what it's like to stir the pot. He has already been attacked in other media accounts as a disgruntled employee who was fired and displayed a violent temper.

Russell was a disgruntled employee. He admits that if he had been paid, he probably wouldn't have talked. Even so, discrediting him doesn't explain the existence of the trashed registration forms.

Channel 8 eyewitness news. Nevada

I believe this is 2004. Ok time to sleep...

You keep changing the subject. We're talking about ACORN getting taxpayer money, and using it to help elect Democrats. Again, this is wrong.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but why do we need "get out the vote" organizations. If you are a citizen in a democratic republic, and want to exercise your sacred right to vote, then do it, simple as that. Do we really need to bus people/offer bribes etc. to get people to vote.

No, I was trying to show yo something. Republican disguised as Democrats "registering" voters. If you believe this "mass voter fraud" consrpicay, then I believe republican operatives are behind it.

As to your "tax payer money" thing, yeah I do agree that a partisan organization should not receive funding from the government, maybe we should cut off the Justice Department too.
I do not mind the intent however. These organizations helped me when I first was able to vote. I do not remember what organization it was, but they showed me where my polling place was and what I needed to bring in order to vote. Granted I could have looked it up myself, but when you're 18, that's just not the most "important" thing. I do not mind that these organizations are trying to help people participate in our Democracy. I like Voters Outreach too, they were willing to take my elderly grandparents to the precinct. Of course I turned them down

Even though the poorer people in our country are shown to vote Dem.Is ACORN refusing to register REPs?