An activist organization on Tuesday defended its voter registration practices amid new allegations of voter fraud and a call from Republican lawmakers to investigate irregularities.
In Ohio, a key swing state in an election that is won on a state-by-state basis, Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama told reporters that the group’s registration problems should not be used by the Republicans as an excuse to keep voters from turning out on Election Day.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, has registered 1.3 million young people, minorities and poor and working-class voters, the group says.
Some of those registration cards have become the focus of fraud investigations in Nevada, Connecticut, Missouri and at least five other states. Election officials also recently questioned the group’s voter forms in Ohio and North Carolina, a southern state that is normally a safe bet for Republicans but is now up for grabs.
More than 13,000 workers in 21 states recruited low-income voters, who tend to be Democrats.
“The vast, vast majority were dedicated workers,” ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said at a news conference on Tuesday. “They did something remarkable in bringing all these new voters.”
On Monday, election officials in Ohio’s most populous county asked a prosecutor to probe multiple registrations by four people who signed up through ACORN. One voter said he signed 73 voter registration forms over a five-month period.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections is reviewing suspect voter forms from at least two counties.
Meanwhile, House Republicans have also renewed their push for the Justice Department to investigate the group. On Friday, six Republican leaders wrote to US Attorney General Michael Mukasey to urge him to make sure ballots by ineligible or fraudulent voters are not counted on Nov. 4.
A law enforcement official said ACORN has been on the radar of federal investigators. But the official would not say whether an investigation has been opened, and spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue so close to the presidential election.
Whelan said ACORN staffers separate applications with missing or false information and flag them for election officials. All applications, including problematic cards, are handed in because some state laws require it, he said.
Whelan said he did not know how many registration cards had problems but believed it was a small percentage. He was unsure how many workers were fired for purposely turning in duplicates or applications with fake information, he said.
“If they look false, we identify them as such,” Whelan said of the forms.
ACORN has been drawn into a back-and-forth between the presidential campaigns.
Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain’s campaign on Tuesday accused Obama of having close ties to the group.
“Obama has a responsibility to rein in ACORN and prove that he’s willing to fight voter fraud,” said McCain’s running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, in an interview with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday.
Obama and two other lawyers in 1995 represented ACORN in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois to make voter registration easier. During this year’s primary, Obama hired a firm with ties to the group for a massive get-out-the-vote effort.
Obama told reporters on Tuesday that ACORN was not advising his campaign on voter registration.
Last week, McCain called for a federal investigation of the organization during a campaign rally. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, has said Obama’s connection to the activist group should be investigated.
“This is another one of those distractions that get stirred up during the campaign,” Obama said.
Separately on Tuesday, the Buckeye Institute, a conservative think tank in Columbus, Ohio, filed a lawsuit against ACORN over its voter registration drives.
The lawsuit, filed in Warren County Common Pleas Court, alleges that the group engages in a pattern of corrupt activity that amounts to organized crime and seeks its dissolution.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS