fraud

According to a report from Ohio today, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the ACORN-tainted Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, to investigation ACORN's voter registration work in the state.

“U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan has formally asked Ohio's secretary of state to look into allegations that ACORN had at least a preliminary plan to back Democrat candidates in key Ohio congressional races in 2008.”

The political plan was described in an October article as “having been scaled back,” and of course, ACORN denied any partisan activity.

“But to some, ACORN's early 13-page plan for the 2008 election reinforces what critics always assumed: The group's goal was never nonpartisan. The political plan and other ACORN documents show that the group was interested not just in helping presidential candidate Barack Obama, whom it urged its members to support, according to post-election Federal Election Commission reports. ACORN also was interested in Congress and the Ohio Statehouse.

"There's no question that ACORN strategized to figure out how its election efforts could maximize the benefit for selected Democratic candidates in the most competitive races," U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of California told The Plain Dealer. “

An illuminating  fact not mentioned in either article is that ACORN prepared political plans for several key battleground states in 2006 and again during the 2007-08 election cycle. As evidenced by the draft plans developed in the Spring of 2006 by the Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD) of ACORN Political Operations, these plans were aimed at electing “progressives” and in some cases broke down the Congressional districts by race for maximum targeting. SWORD, which was staffed by Project Vote staff, including myself, worked with ACORN head organizers in FL, MD, MI, MN, OH, PA, and RI to create local documents for the ACORN field staff to implement and present to funders and/or various partner organizations.

A copy of the Maryland and Colorado draft plans from 2006 are available online. Key parts of the plans are the contact and Congressional district sections at the end. For example, in the Maryland plan, it calls for mailings and face to face contact. A screen shot of the type of mailing Marylanders received is shown below.

ACORN used Project Vote staff and computers to create the PowerPoint “Campaign for a New Congress." This PowerPoint was aimed at swaying the Congressional election in Maryland from Albert Wynn to ACORN ally Donna Edwards. Using the final political plan, ACORN canvassed voters and mailed pieces through its affiliate Communities Voting Together.

Campaign for a New Congress

Communities Voting Together has the same address as the Project Vote office in DC and its address on the screen shot above is the same Elysian Fields address where hundreds of other ACORN entities "reside.

As a 527 group, Communities Voting Together paid over 150,000 to Citizen's Services Inc, and contributed to Wade Rathke's Chief Organizer Fund. Jeff Robinson is listed as the contact for Communities Voting Together and some may remembered Robinson from the 2008 elections (emphasis mine):

"In fact, the Obama campaign paid an ACORN-run organization more than $800,000. In Federal Election Commission required filings, the Obama campaign reported that this money was paid for polling, advance work and event staging. After watchdog scrutiny called this claim into question, the Obama campaign revised its filing and acknowledged that CSI was paid for “get-out-the-vote” projects.

CSI Executive Vice President Jeff Robinson last August told Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter David M. Brown that CSI is a 'separate organization entirely' from ACORN. But as Brown reported, CSI has the same office address as ACORN’s national headquarters, ACORN itself described CSI in 2006 as its 'campaign services entity.' Coincidentally, the widely identified “national deputy political director for campaigns and elections” for ACORN is...Jeff Robinson."

ACORN's shell corporations make it easy for a political plan to become a partisan voter registration drive facilitated by thin veiled “partnerships.” The filing reports of Communities Voting Together raise a number of questions, including whether the misspelling of the name on the filing was intentional. The payments to various ACORN entities should give any astute lawmaker pause.

ACORN has been able to claim that it never worked in some recent elections including NY-23, but as this screen shoot illustrates, Communities Voting together was mailing and passing out door knockers in 2006 for Corzine in New Jersey (without a mention of ACORN).

Will ACORN backed officials like Jennifer Brunner (who has her eye on a Senate seat) and officials in Maryland and Colorado take notices of these obvious attempts to elect Democrats, or will they continue to turn a blind eye to ACORN in order to save themselves?

 Media Matters continues to try to provide cover for the public flogging ACORN has received as a result of investigative videos which showed ACORN employees giving advice on a number of illegal activities including human trafficking, child prostitution, bank fraud, illegal immigration and tax evasion. Meanwhile, the mainstream media has largely ignored a growing scandal that cannot be contained: ACORN is reportedly closing offices across the country, including the site of the DC undercover videotape..

Also, today another damning ACORN tape was released at Big Government. This time an ACORN member openly confessed to ACORN using non-partisan voter registration to secretly produce Obama votes.

Anyone paying attention knows accusations relating to voter registration fraud, illicit partisan activity and other chicanery often have been made against ACORN, with ACORN either denying all or any ACORN fault. In October of 2008, I testified in Pennsylvania regarding the illegal coordination between Barack Obama's Campaign and ACORN:

“A former staffer for Project Vote, a sister organization of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, testified at a hearing in Pennsylvania on Wednesday that the Obama campaign provided the group with a campaign donor list in late 2007 for their fundraising efforts. The former D.C. staffer, Anita Moncrief, said she still has a copy of what she called the 'development plan' she used to help her identify the maxed-out Obama donors for solicitation. The hearing was part of a lawsuit brought by the GOP seeking information and an injunction against certain ACORN activities in Pennsylvania.

“McCain-Palin campaign manager Rick Davis said in a statement, 'We now know that Barack Obama's campaign was working hand-in-glove with an organization reportedly under investigation by the F.B.I. and in more than a dozen states. In addition to funneling $832,000 to ACORN for get-out-the-vote efforts, the Obama campaign and ACORN have been sharing donor lists, encouraging maxed-out Obama donors to contribute to this unethical organization.'" (emphasis mine).”

The member caught on tape publicized by Big Government is another in a long line of “bad apples” for ACORN. As it becomes harder to hide behind poor minorities, ACORN appears to be on the run. Unfortunately, they are running to the White House. There Barack Obama, ACORN's “inside man,” seems poised to protect ACORN and even strike down its enemies. Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) serves as a close confidant of the President with over 20 visits logged in at the White House (he tops the frequent visitor list). Stern has every reason to expect this sort of access, as he not only funneled many millions of dollars into the Obama campaign, but also aligned with SEIU's sister organization, ACORN, to ensure that Obama was elected.

The screen shot is from an internal ACORN document from 2006. When combined with the admissions of the member, it provides additional proof that ACORN and SEIU - with the help of the Obama presidential campaign - intentionally took government and tax exempt donations through organizations like Project Vote to run a partisan voter registration drive aimed at electing Obama. Both the Federal Elections Commission and the media ignored the Obama donor list that was submitted as evidence in the Pennsylvania case and sworn testimony. But can they ignore the admission of someone saying: “I Am ACORN”?

As President ,Obama has paved the way for ACORN and SEIU to receive stimulus money and ACORN favorites to receive prime appointments to both executive and judicial positions.

Of course, Obama has admitted to limited ties with ACORN. But Americans have witnessed Obama run the country like one big ACORN office and trying to implement ACORN's radical agenda. Apparently being a community organizer is something that - like ACORN - is hard for Obama to shake. In 2001, a group of ACORN protesters broke up a community tenant meeting by shouting the words, “Yes, We Can.” Eight years later, ACORN man Obama rode to victory using the same slogan of those angry protesters.

With so much to lose, lawmakers are concerned about the lengths to which Obama will go to in order to protect ACORN. Congressman Steve King of Iowa released a statement today suggesting that a cover-up may be being executed under the guise of an investigation:

“Bob Bauer has a public record of defending Barack Obama’s relationship with ACORN. Bauer has acted as the agent between Obama and ACORN, and now he will be perfectly positioned to be tasked with erasing the tracks between Obama and ACORN. Bauer’s hiring appears to be a tactical maneuver to strategically defend the White House exactly one week after Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell raided ACORN's national headquarters in New Orleans and seized paper records and computer hard drives that may lead to the White House.”

Congressman King has reason to worry. The Democrat-controlled Congress has given ACORN plenty of time and warning to prepare for these “investigations”. In March of this year Michigan Representative John Conyers backed down from a call to investigate ACORN after several witnesses testified about the 2008 elections and ACORN. Portions of my Pennsylvania testimony regarding ACORN's illegal activities in 2008 were read into the record and hundreds of pages of evidence were submitted by GOP Attorney Heather Heidelbaugh. In explaining his flip flop, Conyers cited “the Powers that be.” As the “Age of Obama” unfolds, it's not hard to guess who "the powers" are.

Obama is willing to make small, symbolic concessions like removing ACORN from the Census, but his Justice Department remains oddly complacent with ACORN. The bailout hungry media covered up the Obama/ACORN story  and continue to ignore damaging stories like the IRS dropping ACORN from its list of VITA sites.

Mainstream newspapers and online liberal “news” sources appear content to continue to play the “race card” and paint conservatives as obsessed about ACORN because ACORN purported to help the poor. ACORN may be Teflon as long as Obama is in the White House. Charges of tax evasion, child prostitution, voter registration fraud, illegal immigration, bank fraud, etc. may not stick to ACORN.

With 2010 rapidly approaching, a look at ACORN's cookie cutter statements on its voter programs tells us what ACORN plans for America.

Fortunately, Big Government caught one of those “highly trained” ACORN organizers on tape. How many more "bad apples" does it take before it is generally realized that ACORN itself is rotten to the core?

ACORN’s chief organizer and CEO Bertha Lewis appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ on May 29, 2009 to combat the growing criticism that ACORN is a criminal enterprise that is operating as an arm of the Democrats. Well, a watered down version of Bertha Lewis appeared, for those who are not familiar with her colorful character see Youtube. ACORN spokespersons have never had a problem lying on camera, but under oath is a different story (as witnessed by Karyn Gillette’s swift departure from a courtroom in Pennsylvania back in October of 2008). ACORN National spokesman Scott Levenson and other ACORN spokespersons have defended their actions and blamed rogue employees. During ‘The O’Reilly Factor’, Lewis asserted that she is in charge and that no criminal activity will be tolerated on her watch. Really.

For background, Lewis assumed control over the organization, that is, became Chief Organizer after it was revealed that ACORN’s founder Wade Rathke had covered up the embezzlement of almost $1 million dollars by his brother Dale, ACORN’s longtime chief financial organizer. The embezzlement occurred around December of 2000 and was reported by the New York Times

As the Senate debates the stimulus package, there has been yet another flurry of articles and blogs regarding ACORN receiving federal funds. Many Republican Senators has spoken out against the possibility of ACORN receiving funding; including Ohio'S John Boehner, who has taken an admirable stand in the face of outright pressure and the inference that debating the bill will harm the economy and the American people.

However, the silence from the Democrats is deafening. Besides the courage of some middle of the road Dems to challenge the pork, no one seems to be asking the million dollar question: “Why is ACORN even around to be eligible for this money.” Conservatives love to raise the standard in election years, but quickly loose interest when the elections are over. The problem with this approach is two fold. First, as stated in previous blogs, ACORN is fully prepared to fight allegations of voter registration fraud. Actually they use the press coverage to demonstrate to the members and funders how fragile minority voting rights are and that Republicans want to challenge them at the polls. Like the Christian Bale movie The Prestige they have one amazing trick that runs for limited performances. In this case, its every two years. Not to say that you are not correct in the assumption that there are problems with the voter registration cards, as noted in a December 2006 report:

If it were a movie, the title would read ACORN Part IV: The Payoff. Unfortunately, its not a movie and the Association Of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is finally back in the news after a post election hiatus filled with strategically placed puff pieces on members barging into foreclosure meetings and disrupting proceedings. The proposed stimulus package will continue on in the Bush tradition of rewarding bad behavior. 

To refresh the minds of a public who may have missed the 1000+ a day pre-election blogs and articles, ACORN has continued on its storied path of “shady” voter registration tactics, intimidation and ultimately financial rewards.As the civil RICO complaint filed this month by the ACORN 8 illustrates:

“Moreover, through the investigation following the embezzlement and subsequent acts of concealment and retaliation; the complainants have discovered that ACORN has become the victim of its Senior Staff and Executive Committee members through the course of an association-in-fact enterprise and RICO conspiracy.The Defendants have engaged in these acts knowingly and intentionally with a common purpose of controlling ACORN its and its associated/affiliated entities and denying its membership the benefits of any true democratic process. Thus, there appears to be a pattern of misuse and/or conversion of funds,abuse of management authorization, concealment of assets and evidence of management collusion, throughout ACORN and related organizations.”

How can an organization that has pending complaints in 11 states have any access to money contributed by same taxpayers who they have misrepresented and used?

During the election cycle, ACORN was cited in at least twelve states on suspicious voter registration activities, and recently in St. Louis, MO a former ACORN worker was indicted. The real story has not been reported yet, the truth is that the voter registration fraud allegations are pure misdirection by ACORN. They welcome these type of allegation because it allows them to operate while holding up minorities and screaming about racial discrimination and voter intimidation. The Right seems to play their roles perfectly by lambasting ACORN in the press, and the general public doesn't know who to believe. While everyone is looking left; ACORN is making off with your life savings over on the right. This smoke and mirrors approach works well for ACORN whose Voter Registration activities range from the aggressive to the absurd as this excerpt from the Project Voter Voter Registration manual will show: 

TRAIN YOUR WORKERS NEVER TO SAY, “ARE YOU REGISTERED TO VOTE?”If they stop you and say they are registered, ask “Oh, at your current address?” If they say yes, ask, “Did you vote in the last presidential election?” to make sure they haven’t been purged. If they didn’t vote in the last presidential, register them again.General Tips

• set clear numerical hourly expectations, retrain once, and then fire
• review numbers at the end of each shift with them, before they go out again and waste your money on another bad shift
• use the FT organizer job as an incentive for people who do well

ACORN main goal was never bipartisan voter registration, but to ultimately control our once democratic elections. During the November 27-29 2006 Political Operations Debrief Retreat at Petit Jean State Park, ACORN staff met to map out certain goals and among them was how to steal elections: 

“Leveraging of PowerWhat would it take to be able to determine who wins? Could we elect the next mayor of Philly, for example? “

In order to expose ACORN we must retrain ourselves to look beyond their antics in election years and review the overall criminal activities of the organization. At the current rate of expansion, ACORN could control elections in most major cities. As the concept paper entitled: Building Organization Off the 2008 Election Cycle states: 

“We think we can manage staff to get at least 60% of new registers to join as members. At this level we would have joined over 700,000 new provisional members in 2006. “

To explain how this works, ACORN takes money that was given to tax exempt Project Vote, and this “contract” allows ACORN to use the voter registration drives to collect personal information for possible solicitation purposes. A Project Vote Administrative Procedures manual even details the process of sending copies of the information back to funders. 

NOTES ON PHOTOCOPYING AND PACKAGINGYou need to mail copies to national at least once a week, with the proper national tally sheet adding up the copies in the package.PLEASE PLEASE you MUST include national tally sheets in the packages you are sending to National. Not just the batch cover sheets from the organizer's shifts, but the overall national tally sheet that tells us how many regs are in the package, how many emails, and how many phones. Contrary to popular opinion, I cannot just wave my hands over a cardboard box and know how many registrations with phones are in there.Please package your copies so that they will survive the shipping and won't arrive balled up in the corner of the box. Use rubber bands, use newspapers to take up extra space. Remember, these are going straight to the funder.

In order for the new administration to really achieve truth and transparency, they must be able to say no to ACORN's requests for payoff. How many victories has ACORN stolen from candidates by either tainting their election or claiming their victory? I call on all of the Senators from ACORN battleground states like Florida, Missouri, Ohio , Pennsylvania and Minnesota to publicly denounce these type of tactics that allow for the poor to be used and for then indicted.

For those who do not believe that there is an organized effort to deceive the public one only has to look at ACORN's strategy for dealing with or outright deceiving election officials : 

“You have to organize the registrar just like you would anyone else...It’s a good idea to stop by before you start your drive, letting them know you are interested in registering some modest quantity of people to vote and asking what the particular regulations are that you need to follow. There may be little quirks, like the fact that their data entry volunteer comes in on Tuesdays and they like to get the cards turned in on Mondays, and this will help you keep on their good side. I wouldn’t go in with a speech about class revolution. It will be more useful to you if they equate you with the League of Women Voters and have a vague sense that you do charitable things somewhere in the city.”

The excerpt was from Project Vote's own training manual, which also states that they must “Terrorize the contractuals.” Project Vote's Research Director Nathan Henderson James, states in his program evaluation of the 2006 voter registration program that ACORN was aware of training issues but chose to focus on goals instead. 

What were the major goals of the program?To register low- and moderate-income families, African-Americans and Latinos, and young voters in jurisdictions where increased participation by these constituencies would have a positive impact on the election-season policy debates. In 2006 the overall goal for registrations was approximately 600,000 cards.What goals were met? Which weren’t?Overall the program did not meet its initial goals, registering around 530,000-540,000 voters. In most states we failed to reach our original goals.What challenges stopped the program from meeting the goals it didn’t?Funding, first and foremost. After that, I suspect poor implementation of the program hampered its ability to meet its goals. Several cities were faced with bimbo eruptions related to accusations of fraud. Many of the programs also faced changes in the regulatory environment that forced us to curtail activities. FL, AZ, NM, CO, and OH were most affected by these changes.What areas of the program do you think were the most successful?Field implementation was strong despite the challenges noted above with significant numbers of cards gathered in several states including MO, OH, PA, MD, and FL. Our capacity to database these cards was much higher in 2006 than in previous cycles. The added elements of the EA program helped elevate the quality control program and the voter verification work. Site-based work continues to be very strong.What areas of the program do you think were the least successful?While I do not think that quality control was “least successful” it was certainly not as good as it should have been. Other weaknesses related to this were probably the training component for QC staff and the overall accountability of the programs to their QC responsibilities.

While Nathan's notes are enlightening, what is more amazing are the notes from the 2006 Voter Registration debrief held in November of 2006. 

...need to look at hiring practices, look at people and evaluate whether or not they will be able to get people to talk to them and fill out cards, need to be more professional; not being steady and consistent, sometimes have to ramp up on staffing because numbers have fallen behind;Ongoing training has to happen”

ACORN holds these indicted workers up and claims a conclusion to ALL allegations, when actually there is a standing policy to throw them under the bus and move on to the payoff phase. Sandy Newman of Wellspring Advisors and former director of Project Vote lays out how to get to this payoff phase with a simple plan that was targeted at liberal donors in a April 12, 2007 memo entitled:

RE:Preliminary Analysis of Impact of 2003-2006 Voter Registration Drives, and of Voter Participation Opportunities and Funding Needs for 2008

“For donors of tax-deductible funds, efforts to assist any candidate or party are prohibited. These donors may, however, fund efforts to reduce distortions in the democratic process. They may do so because they believe strongly in strengthening democracy regardless of the policy results it produces. They may also believe that reducing such distortions is likely to yield policies more in keeping with the interests of those whose representation in the electoral process has been inadequate. The fact that a donor may hold such a belief, or even that it may motivate giving decisions, does not cause a charitable contribution to be improper, provided that the donor intends that the actual work supported remain strictly non-partisan – that is, the work supported may not provide support or opposition to any candidate or party.”

It's interesting that Wellspring is one of Project Vote's major donors and Sandy Newman steers other money in Project Vote's direction. Newman founded Project Vote along with Zach Polett, who was also head of ACORN Political Operations. ACORN voter registration drives are intentionally partisan undertakings with the intent to replace elected officials with ACORN friendly candidates. This is once again the “wink, wink” approach to doing business. It all seems so legal on the surface.

 America has endured quite a bit in the last 8 years; and now that there is really a chance for reform, it would be detrimental to give ACORN access to such a slush fund. They are operating now at an estimated $100 million a year and causing chaos and division in many cities, I can only imagine what would happen if the had access to even a penny more, let alone a billion. 

The ACORN 8 and other whistleblowers are ready to testify on the Hill, we welcome that chance to expose ACORN, and stop this brazen attempt at giving more money this these poverty pimps. But it is up to our Senators to make the right decision and support the constituents; the moms; the teachers; construction and office workers; and the unemployed. Its time to give them their payoff: loyalty.

Charles Jackson and the management of ACORN released a statement today that seemed to mock a Georgia State Senator. Not only does ACORN treat the poor with wanton disregard but now it seems that elected officials are also treated with disdain.

"Senator Mullis indicates his ignorance by calling for revocation of ACORN’s tax-exempt status; the organization does not have such status.”

Sentator Mullis was correct in calling for ACORN's tax exempt status to be revoked because it does have one, it just happens to be registered in the name of Project Vote. Civil RICO charges filed on January 7, 2009 allege what the liberal voter registration world has known for years. The complaint details a report done by ACORN's own lawyer Elizabeth Kingsley. The complaint also quotes part of the document that was leaked to the New York Times.

"But Ms. Kingsley found that the tight relationship between Project Vote and Acorn made it impossible to document that Project Vote’s money had been used in a strictly nonpartisan manner. Until the embezzlement scandal broke last summer, Project Vote’s board was made up entirely of Acorn staff members and Acorn members.

Ms. Kingsley’s report raised concerns not only about a lack of documentation to demonstrate that no charitable money was used for political activities but also about which organization controlled strategic decisions.

She wrote that the same people appeared to be deciding which regions to focus on for increased voter engagement for Acorn and Project Vote. Zach Pollett, for instance, was Project Vote’s executive director and Acorn’s political director, until July, when he relinquished the former title. Mr. Pollett continues to work as a consultant for Project Vote through another Acorn affiliate."

Oddly enough this same group continues to act as if nothing is amiss and that its staff are not facing criminal charges and Erisa Violations, of course this is on top of the charges of civil rights violations. ACORN's response: hold a vigil on civil rights in Arizona. The audacity of criminals is amazing to me and I have evidence and testimony to support Senator Mullis's claims.

During my tenure at Project Vote from 2005-2008 I personally witnessed that :

• Project Vote violated its 501 (c) 3 status since its inception by using government and private grants that ultimately go directly or indirectly to ACORN for partisan purposes.

• ACORN, Project Vote and Citizen Services Inc. (CSI) are the same organization with different tax designations that are used to facilitate the transfer of money between the organizations Direct and Indirect knowledge

• ACORN has promoted a culture of dishonesty motivated by reaching target Voter Registration goals and senior staff have portrayed an attitude that allows for some “bad” cards in order to reach these goals

• As of January 2008, Karyn Gillette, Project Vote Development Director, Jeff Robinson, and Nathan Henderson James, Project Vote Research and Political Director are all employed by CSI-Citizens Services Inc- and may have worked directly with anyone seeking the services of CSI and money paid to CSI would have obvious ACORN ties.

• Karyn Gillette provided list obtained from the Kerry, Clinton,and Obama campaigns, as well as the 2004 DNC donor lists. These lists were shared with the Political directors of roughly 12 ACORN battleground states in order to raise money for a $28 million dollar ( number as of 11/2007) voter registration drive.

• ACORN and Project Vote have used CCI to transfer money between the organizations and may be guilty of violating RICO statues

Not only should ACORN's “feeder” organization Project Vote have its tax exempt status removed but as the civil RICO complaints details, there should be intense federal investigations.

In a memo entitled Thinking Ahead: Potential Political Operations Priorities & Projects 2007 – 2008 dated 11/22/06, Project Vote Executive Director Zach Polett stated the following goals

• Develop strategies for using politics and our political work to support ACORN's organizing, growth, and membership representation agendas -- with particular focus on municipal and state elections

• Build a relationship with the Administration that will take office in January 2009

• Have CSI play a major field role in the general election and, possibly, in the primaries.

• Congressional District Strategy: Develop a plan, for 2007 implementation and funding, that targets organizing, communications and political work in a set of marginal CDs that changed party in the 2006 election. [Also develop list of seats in which current party holds a seat that went the opposite way in the last presidential election – these will contain a number of seats likely to be closely contested in 08.]"

Not only is it clear that 501(c)(3) money was being spent with partisan goals in mind, its seems that it was an accepted part of Project Vote strategy. Mr. Polett goes on to explain how to bring in profit from candidates by with CSI (Citizen Services Inc.)

Expand our CSI campaign consulting business

POTENTIAL GOALS

A) Develop CSI as a profit center for the work of Political Operations.

B) Expand ACORN’s power and reach by creating the in-house capacity to deliver political capacity when it’s needed: managing ballot measure campaigns; collecting signatures; running large electoral field campaigns; running campaigns of local candidates for office; conducting grasstips lobbying campaigns; etc.

POSSIBLE IMPLEMENTATION PLANS

A) Write a business plan for CSI, including marketing plan and pricing plan.

B) Identify or hire a Managing Director for CSI’s external business.

C) Identify a list of potential funded ballot measure campaigns that CSI should pursue for full-service and/or signature collection management contracts.

D) Identify a list of 2007 and 2008 candidate campaigns that CSI should pursue for contracts and relationships.

Amazingly the final goal in the memo involves something that clearly relates to recent election chaos.

“Secretaries of State: Identify 2007 and 2008 Secretary of State races in which we should play, with the goal of getting responsible, pro-voter, competent people in these offices.”

ACORN seems to be very successful at running a voter registration campaign that is fronted by Project Vote but then “contracted” to ACORN t o do the work always ultimately turns partisan, as it states in the Midwest Regional Report Year End/Year Begin 2006/2007:

“Voter Registration did a huge number of cards, 70K but also had big gaps in the tightness of the drive. Minnesota had a breakthrough year as well, with APAC making early endorsements in the Governor’s race, Keith Ellison for Congress, Mark Ritchie for Secretary of State and Lori Swanson for AG. We won 3 of the 4 big ones, with our candidate’s meltdown a week out costing us a huge friend in the Governor’s mansion. We ran a good-sized America Votes canvass in our turf as well as 13K registrations.”

Not only should Mullis call for action against Project Vote, but it may be time to see what ACORN has really been up to with its other “sister” organizations. ACORN is like a turtle and rarely lets its true money makers stick their heads up or as Zach Polett puts it in his notes from 02/09/06:

“Communications Stuff: Do we really want a communication person to establish and maintain relationships with reporters? Do we want Project Vote to have increased visibility on field stuff? Leads most likely to attacks. So keep your head down and keep the non-partisan 501c3 status away from attack. Keep it pristine. Some things we may want to be Project Vote, such as EA [Election Administration] stuff.

A media component might be a part of a larger plan to move policy reports and analysis, most likely with policy reporters, not so much with political reporters, who are more on the lookout for the next Abramoff scandal.”

That quote speaks for itself. Good Luck Senator Mullis.

H/T Election Journal.

I just contributed $5 to Barack Obama.

I didn't want to. Ideally, I could have contributed $0.01 and cost them money. But it was the only way to confirm the root cause of the fraudulent micro-donations to the Obama campaign ("Doodad Pro" for $17,300 and "Good Will" for $11,000).

The Obama campaign has turned its security settings for accepting online contributions down to the bare minimum -- possibly to juice the numbers, and turning a blind eye towards the potential for fraud not just against the FEC, but against unsuspecting victims of credit card fraud.

The issue centers around the Address Verification Service (or AVS) that credit card processors use to sniff out phony transactions. I was able to contribute money using an address other than the one on file with my bank account (I used an address I control, just not the one on my account), showing that the Obama campaign deliberately disabled AVS for its online donors. 

AVS is generally the first line of defense against credit card fraud online. AVS ensures that not only is your credit card number accurate, but the street address you've submitted with a transaction matches the one on file with your bank.

Authorize.net, the largest credit card gateway provider in the country, lists AVS as a "Standard Transaction Security Setting," recommends merchants use it, and turns it on by default. So, in order for AVS to be turned off, it has to be intentional, at least with Authorize.net.

Authorize.net's website describes it this way:

Bankcard processors implemented the Address Verification Service (AVS) to aid merchants in the detection of suspicious transaction activity. The payment processing network compares the billing address provided in the transaction with the cardholder’s address on file at the credit card issuing bank. The processing network returns an AVS response code that indicates the results of this comparison to the payment gateway. You can configure your account to reject certain transactions based on the AVS code returned. For example, the AVS code “A” indicates that the street address matched, but the first five digits of the ZIP Code did not.

The end result? "Donors" like "Doodad Pro" can submit tons of donations totaling well above the $2,300 limit using different bogus addresses (this does clarify how donations from "Palestine", or PA, got through). And the campaign has no way to reliably de-dupe these donations, besides looking at the last four digits of the credit card number, which with 3.1 million donors is an identifier that could be shared by literally hundreds of donors, and is not as easy to eyeball like a common name or address would be. The ability to contribute with a false address, when the technology to prevent it not only exists but comes standard, is a green light for fraud.

One could understand the oversight if prior to the bogus donor story breaking. But you'd think they would have taken measures to step up their donor security in the aftermath of the revelations. Having AVS turned on would have stopped or significantly deterred the fraudulent donations (or, at a very minimum, made them easily detectable). By turning this basic setting off, the Obama campaign invited this kind of fraud and has taken no steps to correct it. 

Barack Obama was Legal Counsel for these people. -Patrick

Obama's home political supporters, the leftist "community" organization called ACORN, is guilty of hiding the theft of one million dollars of its funds by the brother of the organization's founder, Wade Rathke. But, it is even worse than just a case of common embezzlement. It turns out that the ACORN board and brother Wade, leader of the political activist group, tried to cover up the theft so that his bro wouldn't get caught up with the Feds and punished for his theft.

This from the July 9th edition of The New York Times:

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 less than a month for management to alert federal prosecutors, although group officials say they have no clear idea yet what the financial impact may be.

The brother, Dale Rathke, embezzled nearly $1 million from Acorn and affiliated charitable organizations in 1999 and 2000, Acorn officials said, but a small group of executives decided to keep the information from almost all of the group’s board members and not to alert law enforcement.

These are the kind of ner-do-wells we are dealing with where it concerns ACORN. Cronyism, theft, embezzlement, cover ups.... and these are the people behind the many union efforts across the nation, as well as the Barack Obama campaign. It is also the group that Obama grew into political maturity with.

If these facts don't show you what sort of nefarious characters we are dealing with... well, you aren't interested in truth.

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Election Journal was developed to provide news and information concerning voting fraud and other irregularities. The point of view differs from the majority of other web-sites dedicated to this issue in that the culprit is not the “vast-right wing conspiracy.” In fact, EJ seeks to broaden the dialogue with commentary and independent investigation of incidents that have gone largely unreported by the MSM.