Report Finds ACORN Did Not Support Voter Fraud; O'Keefe Is the Real Criminal

Wednesday 16 June 2010

by: Mike Ludwig, t r u t h o u t | Report

Report Finds ACORN Did Not Support Voter Fraud; O'Keefe Is the Real Criminal
(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Sebastian Mary, ACORN)

A new government report debunks claims made by right-wing politicians and media that the now defunct community advocacy group ACORN violated elections law and supported voter fraud.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released Monday also confirms that two former ACORN employees in Maryland did not break the law when they offered advice to conservative activist James O'Keefe and columnist Hannah Giles, who secretly videotaped a meeting with the employees while posing as a couple interested in starting a brothel.

O'Keefe and fellow activists pled guilty last month to a misdemeanor charge for illegally entering Sen. Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office and tampering with her phone.

ACORN fired the employees that advised O'Keefe and Giles and then filed a lawsuit against the pranksters, alleging they broke a Maryland law stating that both parties must agree to sound recordings.

The media firestorm created by O'Keefe's video was the tipping point in a right-wing war against ACORN that can be traced back to the Bush administration. Congress quickly acted to strip the organization of funding, and both public and private donors dropped their sponsorship.

ACORN had been the largest poor people's rights and community organizing group in the nation, but, starved for funds, the national organization folded in March.

ACORN voter registration drives in poor and minority neighborhoods were apparently a threat to the Bush administration as early as 2004, according to a Truthout investigative report. Emails that surfaced in August 2009 revealed the role that Karl Rove and other administration officials played in the firings of nine US attorneys, two of whom had refused to bring criminal charges against individuals affiliated with ACORN.

The media was quick to report on an alleged history of voter fraud and election violations attributed to ACORN and its affiliates during the 2008 election season, but the GAO report found that, in every case identified, complaints filed against ACORN with the Federal Elections Commission were dismissed.

The report also showed that four of six FBI investigations into alleged voter fraud committed by ACORN employees were closed due to lack of evidence. The two other investigations were also closed and referred to local and state jurisdictions.

The report detailed five cases in which ACORN employees pled guilty to misdemeanor counts of voter registration fraud, but stated that these cases did not allege any wrongdoing on behalf of ACORN or any affiliated organizations. In fact, ACORN offered materials to local election officials that helped initiate the prosecution of the guilty individuals, and each case stated that ACORN had properly trained the individuals to legally register voters.

The GAO report also states that agencies providing funding to ACORN generally did not report "any problem with grants," although reviews are ongoing.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Comments

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This is just bogus- accorn

Wed, 06/16/2010 - 18:32 — Anonymous (not verified)

This is just bogus- accorn has had a history of misusing funds, faking paperwork and voter fraud, if the GAO put out a report saying the Obama admin never approved drilling permits to deep horizon would you write a story glamorizing bp?
Nice try wrong issue

@anon23:32 - Please include

Wed, 06/16/2010 - 22:12 — Anonymous (not verified)

@anon23:32 - Please include your proof when making accusations. You're sounding just like the Bush people who made wild and unsubstantiated claims to discredit ACORN. Typical right wing "swift boat" tactics.

What's bogus is fear, and

Wed, 06/16/2010 - 22:15 — Anonymous (not verified)

What's bogus is fear, and how it brings out a nearly overwhelming blast of lies from those who feel threatened, Hey, no organization is perfect, but as history shows us, the most evil thrive and thrive until some fateful day of collapse, the bewildered wondering what went wrong, ENRON comes to mind.

ACORN was helpful to the most disenfranchised in society, those that power saw fit to marginalize and exploit.

Where's your proof anonymous?

Wed, 06/16/2010 - 22:33 — xxNoGodxx (not verified)

The previous commentary is

Wed, 06/16/2010 - 22:38 — Anonymous (not verified)

The previous commentary is just more unproven right wing slander. An abuse of free speech.

Bring ACORN back! (What

Wed, 06/16/2010 - 22:59 — Tom Outland (not verified)

Bring ACORN back!

(What irony that it should go under while Obama, of all people, is president!)

And like the Watergate

Thu, 06/17/2010 - 01:27 — Anonymous (not verified)

And like the Watergate burglars O'Keefe is utterly unrepentant about what he did; as Stalin and Mao said the ends justify the means. He belongs in their company.

O'Keefe AND the Congress,

Thu, 06/17/2010 - 09:03 — Anonymous (not verified)

O'Keefe AND the Congress, who voted OVERWHELMINGLY to defund Acorn are all criminals!

O'Keefe should be prevented

Thu, 06/17/2010 - 09:24 — Anonymous (not verified)

O'Keefe should be prevented from doing the kind of damage he did to ACORN, a legitimate NGO working to help poor people. There are too few groups like them. Here is one of the few victories of the Bushites, and like their others, will be remembered as mendacious.

And what do you bet the

Thu, 06/17/2010 - 10:44 — Anonymous (not verified)

And what do you bet the mainstream media ignore this revelation. They knew this always was a right wing tactic to take out a nemesis. And because the media is owned by 5 right wing corporations, expect silence or at most an abrupt dismissal of the story after a paragraph or two buried on page 16.

Where is Obama to order the FCC to re-look at the issue of media consolidation?

We need to enlist the help

Thu, 06/17/2010 - 13:53 — rbe1 (not verified)

We need to enlist the help of the United Nations to establish NGOs within the United States to ensure free and fair elections. It's the only way to be sure.

Yep. This is how the Right

Thu, 06/17/2010 - 17:47 — Motorod (not verified)

Yep. This is how the Right disenfranchises poor and minority voters. They won't rest until women are back in the kitchen and non-whites are back in the field.

Anon@23;32 comments are typical Righty toll work. You can ask for all the proof you want, but they'll never respond. If they do it'll be some unsubstantiated Rovian b.s. that they saw on Glenn Beck. That's how propaganda works.

I am glad they have been

Thu, 06/17/2010 - 22:21 — ama (not verified)

I am glad they have been exonerated, now I want to learn that
they can SUE and WIN . Get all that
contributed to another one of their BIG LIES. It is getting old!

Years ago Greg Palast

Fri, 06/18/2010 - 09:51 — Brian (not verified)

Years ago Greg Palast published convincing proof that Republicans were systematically removing voters likely to vote Democratic from the polls, using "caging lists" and other tactics. Without this cheating, Bush would not have won a first or second term. Yet nobody was ever prosecuted for this, the FBI never investigated it, and the mainstream media censored this news, as they routinely do when conservatives are caught committing high crimes.

At the same time, the Republicans started a campaign to make it appear as though ACORN was doing what the Republicriminals themselves were doing, which is a propaganda trick they use all the time, usually successfully. Not surprisingly, the mainstream media jumped in and helped, even though there was no evidence of wrongdoing by ACORN. They didn't bother to check out the facts but just parroted what right-wing criminal activists said. They helped destroy an organization that was actually helping legitimate people get registered to vote.

And members of Congress, including huge numbers of Democrats, also pitched in and passed an unconstitutional measure that singled out ACORN for punishment, again without bothering to even verify whether what they were punishing them for ever happened. Why did they do this? Are they really that stupid, or do they simply favor the rich and corporations over the poor? I think it's a little of both, or a lot.

Acorn has to be guilty of

Sat, 06/19/2010 - 09:31 — Anonymous (not verified)

Acorn has to be guilty of voter fraud.. Glenn beck said so. GAO must have been lying..
Glenn and Rush never lie.. 99%

@ Years ago Greg Palast Fri,

Sat, 06/19/2010 - 10:18 — dave (not verified)

@ Years ago Greg Palast
Fri, 06/18/2010 - 14:51 — Brian (not verified

Bush never won anything. Ever. The first election was a fraud and then coup d'etat at the hands of the Supreme Court, and Gore's subsequent abdication. The second election was blatant outright computer frauds, and also an utter abdication by winner John Kerry.

Neither election was legitimate.

It's like capital

Sat, 06/19/2010 - 14:15 — Anonymous (not verified)

It's like capital punishment: kill the guy first, then apologize afterwards. Destroy the social justice organization first, then say "oops".

"The first election was a

Sat, 06/19/2010 - 17:41 — jahf (not verified)

"The first election was a fraud and then coup d'etat at the hands of the Supreme Court... The second election was blatant outright computer frauds... Neither election was legitimate."

Legitimacy is determined by acceptance of the people. Given that the greatest majority of the population accepted the outcomes, both were as legitimate as they needed to be.

I think that ACORN was not

Tue, 06/22/2010 - 07:07 — Anonymous (not verified)

I think that ACORN was not only targeted by the right, but was let down by it's own Board of Directors who refused to step up and do the heavy lifting. After the scandal broke in July 08 by the New York Times. The ACORN Board of Directors should have finished the job by firing all the senior staff and Board Members who participated in the cover-up.

So, though I do not deny the right had a vested interest in seeing ACORN fail the Left should have been equally committed to see ACORN survive and they where not.

I find the CROWING on the right and the Hand Wringing on the left disingenuous Poor people in this country are still catching hell and absolutely none of this helps them. .

No, Anonymous on 6/22 at

Wed, 06/23/2010 - 14:14 — Frances in California (not verified)

No, Anonymous on 6/22 at 12:07 - It is you are disingenuous. You know NOTHING at all about this undefinable quantity you call "The Left". ACORN never was in a position to do any so-called "Heavy Lifting". That requires funds and the cowards in Congress made that impossible. Don't start in on ACORN if you want to talk about cover-ups. Admit that Conservative think-tanks funded the criminal O'Keefe and get active to hold THEM accountable for the suffering the poor in America still endure.