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Voting lawsuit charges ACORN with “corrupt activity”
Warren County has become a new battleground in the campaign against ACORN, the advocacy group at the center of controversy over its voter registration activities.
The Buckeye Institute, a Columbus-based conservative think tank, on Tuesday, Oct. 14, filed a lawsuit against ACORN - the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - in Warren County Common Pleas Court. The lawsuit charges the group with a “pattern of corrupt activity that amounts to organized crime,” a press release said.
Ohio ACORN lashed back at the lawsuit.
“This is an election season stunt, pure and simple,” Mary Keith, Ohio ACORN board member, said in a prepared statement. “We’ve seen the Republican playbook used on us before. They cry foul right up through election day, then all the accusations melt away.”
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Jennifer Miller of Mason and Kimberly Grant of Loveland. They allege that fraudulent voter registrations submitted by ACORN dilute the power of legally registered voters.
The suit seeks the dissolution of ACORN as a legal entity, the revocation of its Ohio licenses and a halt to “fraudulent voter registration and other illegal activities.”
The suit comes as the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Cleveland has asked the county prosecutor to investigate multiple registrations by people who signed forms for ACORN.
To see the Warren County suit, click here.
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By shaen
October 15, 2008 7:35 PM | Link to this
Remember when Bush used the “terror alert color code” whenever he was down in the polls. Used lies to start a war, used lies to get reelected.By MM
October 15, 2008 5:57 PM | Link to this
Just the facts: Q. How many people voted in the 2004 election? A. 122,000,000 Q. As of July 2008, how many people has the U.S. Justice Department convicted of voter fraud? A. Since 2002, the DOJ has convicted “over 100 people” of voter fraud. Do the math. The number of voter fraud cases is a very, very, very small number. If you don’t believe these conviction figures, search for the DOJ “Fact Sheet: Protecting Voting Rights and Preventing Election Fraud” released July 2, 2008.By MM
October 15, 2008 3:45 PM | Link to this
A missing factoid: how many false registrations were submitted? Is the number really big or really small? Is a registration “false” when a Board of Elections person made a typo when entering the hand-written registration form into the computer? In 2006, the Brennan Center published state-by-state reports of new voter registration procedures as of November 2005. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that simple errors at any point in the process, including data entry at local Boards of Elections, could prevent a citizen’s vote from being counted.By Leslie
October 15, 2008 10:00 AM | Link to this
It is a proven fact there has been voter fraud. The local news in Ohio has been interviewing the kids that were harrassed by ACORN. They have interviewed some of the homeless that ACORN got to register and vote. Yes real proof! Not lies, proof!By Dave
October 15, 2008 9:55 AM | Link to this
I’ve been wondering that myself, Bill. The character who was “forced” to register 70+ times used his true name and address, so he committed no crimes and is only registered to vote once. I have never met an election worker who was dumb enough to believe that Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck really lived in his/her neighborhood, so no problem there either. ACORN may have a civil suit for fraud against their recruiters. I don’t see any other effects. What am I overlooking?By Bill
October 15, 2008 8:31 AM | Link to this
What if the allegations ARE true?By Jeff Theben
October 14, 2008 11:22 PM | Link to this
This illustrates the fundamentals of the neo-Republican party; achieving power for them is the only thing that matters. Its obvious Republicans don’t care what is going on with the majority of the people in the country. As long as they retain the power to take care of themselves at the expense of the poor, the weak, and even the unborn, that’s all that matters. They’ll lie and cheat about anything to get support from people who really shouldn’t even give them the time of day Republicans especially like lying about taxes – they always say they won’t tax you, but they are really just stealing from your future. Republicans have run up $5 trillion in debt in the last 8 years you know. So Republicans trying to disrupt democracy through fraudulent lawsuits like this is to be expected from these self serving cowards.By James
October 14, 2008 9:55 PM | Link to this
Boy, the Republicans are walking lockstep on this one. Only problem is they are permanently alienating everyone but white people from their party. Pretty soon they will look just like a Klan rally.By gobama
October 14, 2008 8:01 PM | Link to this
woooooooooooooooobama! who cares about warren county anyhoooooooooBy Glus
October 14, 2008 7:10 PM | Link to this
I am amazed at the number of people that believe that since McCain spoke at an ACORN meeting two years ago, he is somehow involved in the fraudulent registrations going on now. If ACORN will not even accept responsibility, how is that McCain is to blame? But on the other hand Obama works for them as legal counsel, trains the workers, and donates $800,000.00 to them, but you Obama lovers don’t want to mention that. Open your eyes folks, he is a wolf in sheeps clothing. Go to the new york post website and look at what Jesse Jackson sees as the future of america.By escondidoguy
October 14, 2008 6:54 PM | Link to this
Obam will lose this election for two blatant reasons. He’s a corrupt Chicago politician and he doesn’t know a thing about leadership.By escondidoguy
October 14, 2008 6:54 PM | Link to this
Obam will lose this election for two blantant reasons. He’s a corrupt Chicago politician and he doesn’t know a thing about leadership.By Joe D.
October 14, 2008 6:09 PM | Link to this
Hey sore losers, what was McCain doing addressing ACORN and praising their work two years ago? And don’t tell me that these fraud allegations are new, because it’s the same stunt Karl Rove orchestrated in 2004 and 2006. And when the Republicans can’t get their U.S. attorneys to prosecute fraud because there isn’t any, they fire the attorneys. Now THAT’S disrespectful. People, stop drinking the Kool-Aid and listening to the garbage the Republican Party spews. The Democratic Party is not perfect, but the GOP has been downright despicable in the Gingrich-Rove-Bush era.By Glus
October 14, 2008 5:37 PM | Link to this
Oh the hilarity…today Obama said he doesn’t need ACORN’s help. He is throwing them under the bus too! Talking about the fraud…oh so funny, he should of paid attention to them when he gave their front organization 800,000! Oh…Obama…are you gonna have any friend’s left when this is over, other than the people that think you are the messiah?By Obama is going to WIN
October 14, 2008 5:02 PM | Link to this
Keep batting your gums whiners! No one is perfect but OBAMA IS going to be the next president. William and Hershey learn how to hit “enter”once. Leslie get a hobby no one cares what you say.By jim
October 14, 2008 4:52 PM | Link to this
Come on Dayton, come on Ohio, pick up your phone , pick up your keyboard, we have two senators doing nothing, saying nothing about this fraud they should be yelling about this, let them know that this is not going to fly and that we are not going to shut up about it.By William Sprus
October 14, 2008 4:37 PM | Link to this
It appears that voters don’t seem to care about the fraud of ACORN and Obama. Obama was an ACORN trainer and gave $800,000 to ACORN to register voters!By William Sprus
October 14, 2008 4:34 PM | Link to this
It appears that voters don’t seem to care about the fraud of ACORN and Obama. Obama was an ACORN trainer and gave $800,000 to ACORN to register voters!By William Sprus
October 14, 2008 4:32 PM | Link to this
It appears that voters don’t seem to care about the fraud of ACORN and Obama. Obama was an ACORN trainer and gave $800,000 to ACORN to register voters!By William Spruston
October 14, 2008 4:32 PM | Link to this
It appears that voters don’t seem to care about the fraud of ACORN and Obama. Obama was an ACORN trainer and gave $800,000 to ACORN to register voters!By Marge Mueller
October 14, 2008 4:22 PM | Link to this
I agree with the person who wrote to void all ACORN registered voters. Small wonder that there’s fraud. I voted early. Went into the Board of Elections building, said I was a registered voter, was given a paper on which I had to put my drivers license number or the last 4 digits of my SSN. Without checking anything, I was toild to go into the next room to vote. While I was waiting to vote several unregistered people came in, were given certain papers to fill out, they turned the papers in and were given permission to get in line to vote. Also while standing there, a gentleman behind me mentioned that his son, who goes to OSU, could probably vote twice since no on was checking anything. Maybe we should statrt all over.By Marge Mueller
October 14, 2008 4:21 PM | Link to this
I agree with the person who wrote to void all ACORN registered voters. Small wonder that there’s fraud. I voted early. Went into the Board of Elections building, said I was a registered voter, was given a paper on which I had to put my drivers license number or the last 4 digits of my SSN. Without checking anything, I was toild to go into the next room to vote. While I was waiting to vote several unregistered people came in, were given certain papers to fill out, they turned the papers in and were given permission to get in line to vote. Also while standing there, a gentleman behind me mentioned that his son, who goes to OSU, could probably vote twice since no on was checking anything. Maybe we should statrt all over.By Glus
October 14, 2008 4:07 PM | Link to this
As has been well said, “Obama is just a squirrel. A squirrel is a rat but with better PR”. Doesn’t take too much to figure that a squirrel would be caught with ACORN on his paws, it’s where a squirrel gets most of his energy.By jim
October 14, 2008 4:00 PM | Link to this
Come on people time to email our do nothing senators and the atty. general. flood their mailboxes and don’t let acorn get away thisBy null
October 14, 2008 4:00 PM | Link to this
The DDN won’t investigate the Montgomery County Sheriff’s relationship with a former employee. What makes you think they will investigate something hard?By Glus
October 14, 2008 3:57 PM | Link to this
There is a simple solution to the mess—invalidate every voter registration processed by ACORN. Then pull their tax-exempt status and shut off all future government funding. This organization is rotten to the core. If they were registering on behalf of the republicans I can already hear the shrill screams from Pelosi and co.By Glus
October 14, 2008 3:48 PM | Link to this
Obama gives ACORN $835,000 in May and he’s got the nerve to say he’s only connection is when he represented them in 95. Ayers is just someone who lives in my neighborhood. In 20 years I never heard my minister say hateful things. Rekzo was only a guy that help me find a house. When will the MSM call this man on all these lies. When this man opens his mouth he lies.By Obama is going to WIN
October 14, 2008 3:41 PM | Link to this
It doesn’t matter whiners! OBAMA IS GOING TO WIN!!!!By Hershey
October 14, 2008 3:09 PM | Link to this
Time for all voters to file suits to stop Acorn and Obama. His fingerprints are all over ACORN and the financial crisis we are now facing. The main stream media frets over Obama’s safety, but patriotic Americans fret over our own safety. Obama has the secret service. The rest of us don’t even have an Attorney General that is concerned about voter fraud. As a result this country is three weeks from being taken over by socialists and our way of life…freedom, vibrant economy, the right to speak out when we object…destroyed forever.By Hershey
October 14, 2008 3:09 PM | Link to this
Time for all voters to file suits to stop Acorn and Obama. His fingerprints are all over ACORN and the financial crisis we are now facing. The main stream media frets over Obama’s safety, but patriotic Americans fret over our own safety. Obama has the secret service. The rest of us don’t even have an Attorney General that is concerned about voter fraud. As a result this country is three weeks from being taken over by socialists and our way of life…freedom, vibrant economy, the right to speak out when we object…destroyed forever.By Hershey
October 14, 2008 3:09 PM | Link to this
Time for all voters to file suits to stop Acorn and Obama. His fingerprints are all over ACORN and the financial crisis we are now facing. The main stream media frets over Obama’s safety, but patriotic Americans fret over our own safety. Obama has the secret service. The rest of us don’t even have an Attorney General that is concerned about voter fraud. As a result this country is three weeks from being taken over by socialists and our way of life…freedom, vibrant economy, the right to speak out when we object…destroyed forever.By Hershey
October 14, 2008 3:09 PM | Link to this
Time for all voters to file suits to stop Acorn and Obama. His fingerprints are all over ACORN and the financial crisis we are now facing. The main stream media frets over Obama’s safety, but patriotic Americans fret over our own safety. Obama has the secret service. The rest of us don’t even have an Attorney General that is concerned about voter fraud. As a result this country is three weeks from being taken over by socialists and our way of life…freedom, vibrant economy, the right to speak out when we object…destroyed forever.By Hershey
October 14, 2008 3:09 PM | Link to this
Time for all voters to file suits to stop Acorn and Obama. His fingerprints are all over ACORN and the financial crisis we are now facing. The main stream media frets over Obama’s safety, but patriotic Americans fret over our own safety. Obama has the secret service. The rest of us don’t even have an Attorney General that is concerned about voter fraud. As a result this country is three weeks from being taken over by socialists and our way of life…freedom, vibrant economy, the right to speak out when we object…destroyed forever.By JOHANNA
October 14, 2008 3:07 PM | Link to this
DDN INVESTIGATE THIS! DO YOUR JOB AS OUR LOCAL NEWPAPER!By Leslie
October 14, 2008 3:03 PM | Link to this
Obama’s claims that “I have not received some official endorsement from” and “not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis” are both wrong. True, Ayers has not publicly endorsed Obama during the current presidential campaign, but Ayers opened his home to Obama very early in his first campaign for the Illinois state Senate and threw a fundraiser for him. Undoubtedly, that counts as some type of official endorsement. The issue of not exchanging ideas regularly is clearly wrong, too. Ayers and Obama served on two boards together: the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2001 and the Woods Foundation from 1993 to 2002. For the first five years with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama served as chairman of the board and handled its fiscal matters. Ayers was the Chicago Annenberg Challenge’s founder and he served as the chairman of the foundation’s other body that set education policy. Since they served together with a foundation that gave out over $100 million to groups that they both generally agreed with, there had to be some regular exchange of and agreement on ideas. Agreement on views seemed particularly crucial, since Ayers hardly has what most Americans would consider “traditional” views on education. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge gave money to infuse students with a radical political commitment. Just in 2006, Ayers told Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez that, “We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution.” Ayers apparently told an author, who was writing a book on 1960s radicals shortly before the foundation was set up in 1995, that “I’m a radical, Leftist, small ‘c’ communist.” None of the media fact checkers evaluated either of these two claims. Instead, for example, the Washington Post Fact Check focused on whether Ayers was a professor of English or education citing the New York Times story’s claim that the “two men do not appear to have been close.” Nor do any of these media critics mention Obama’s comparison to Coburn, which makes it appear that the relationship between Ayers and Obama was about as close as senators from different political parties at the opposite ends of the political spectrum. Yet, there is still another problem with Obama’s statement, one that Hillary Clinton pointed to. She called on Obama during the debate for not being completely forthcoming regarding the relationship and pointed out that Ayers and Obama had worked together. Senator Obama served on a board with Mr. Ayers for a period of time, the Woods Foundation, which was a paid directorship position. And if I’m not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York, and I would hope to every American, because they were published on 9/11 and he said that he was just sorry they hadn’t done more. And what they did was set bombs and in some instances people died… . And we’re really supposed to believe Obama did not know, by 1996, given all the major media coverage of the 1996 Democratic Convention going back to Chicago despite the 1968 riots — including local and national media interviews with Bill Ayers on the subject — that Obama did not know? … If Obama really did not know, we must question his fitness to be President. Finally, why would Obama ever think that William Ayers had been “rehabilitated”? Both Ayers and his wife have very publicly proclaimed many times on national television shows and other venues during the time Obama was working with Ayers that they were not sorry for the bombings “and that we would do it again” and “I didn’t do enough.” Yet, this is not the first time that Obama has gotten into trouble with his associates. Nor is it the first time that he has been accused of not being honest about what he knew about their controversial views. There appears to be a pattern here. For example, Obama claimed that despite his extremely close personal relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright he was unfamiliar with Wright’s racist and anti-American attacks in his sermons. Indeed, Obama only admitted to have heard what Wright was saying on these topics after Wright’s National Press Club appearance. Yet, nothing really new was said at the National Press Club that hadn’t been discussed nationally months earlier. Still it was only after the National Press Club appearance that Obama said that he was “outraged” and “angered” by Wright’s comments. But Obama’s two other self-professed spiritual leaders, Father Michael Pfleger and Rev. James Meeks, have also made similar controversial and racist statements. There is also Obama’s association with ACORN. Obama claims to have “no connection” with this political advocacy group which is facing criminal investigations for voter registration fraud all across the country, but at the same time his campaign gave a related organization $800,000, he was their head lawyer a decade ago, ACORN has endorsed Obama for president and he promised ACORN members in 2007 that he would be “calling all of you to help shape up the agenda” after the election. Is this bias conscious? How do reporters avoid claims about whether Ayers has endorsed Obama? Or how was Obama being honest when asked to explain his relationship with Ayers and he neglected to mention that he worked for Ayers?By Wanda
October 14, 2008 2:54 PM | Link to this
Why isn’t the Dayton Daily News really investigating this??? It’s right in their backyard!!!By Jack
October 14, 2008 2:50 PM | Link to this
What’s up with this organization? Did the kids who “signed” up the most voters win a prize? Its not a good situation when we are teaching our youth to make up false registrations…whichever party they were doing that for. To teach and/or allow kids (or adults) to draft up false registrations is really sad and hopefully something neither party would condone.By jeff
October 14, 2008 2:16 PM | Link to this
ACORN are just a bunch of NUTS.