According to an August 28th, 2008 article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, ACORN has been accused of registering fake voters.

The Cuyahoga County elections board is investigating ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has submitted about 75,000 voter registration cards to the Cuyahoga board this year.

Some of the instances of suspected fraud include ACORN workers turning in cards with voters with the same name with different addressess, or the same name with different dates of birth.

There is no report yet on how many false cards have been turned in, and as of yet no reports of arrests. I will update the page as the story unfolds.

ACORN says it can't prevent voter registration fraud
UPDATE: 2:57 PM, Wednesday, October 8, 2008
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CLEVELAND An organization under scrutiny across the country for voter registration irregularities has told Ohio election officials it cannot eliminate fraud from its operations.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, blamed inefficiency and lack of resources for problems including duplicate registrations and workers filling out registration cards to make quotas.

The group, which works to get low-income people to vote, has turned in at least 65,000 cards to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Cleveland in the last year. The board has investigated potentially fraudulent cards since August and reviewed the situation Tuesday.

ACORN's chief Cleveland organizer, Kris Harsh, says the group can't be expected to catch everything.

Let every vote count, is the Democratic Party's mantra these days. That slogan might better be: Let every vote count as often as we need to win.

Such, at any rate, are the tactics of ACORN, Barack Obama's favorite "community organizers," and its Project Vote - of which, the Democratic presidential candidate has boasted, "I started working as the director . . . here in Chicago."

ACORN has been implicated in voter-fraud schemes in 15 states - including Ohio, from where The Post's Jeane MacIntosh reports today that a Board of Elections investigation has unearthed evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Two voters told MacIntosh they had been dragooned by ACORN activists into registering several times - one reporting having signed up "10 to 15" times.

ACORN canvassers "would ask me if I was registered," he said. "I'd say yes and they'd ask me to do it again."

Tuesday, Nevada officials raided ACORN's Las Vegas offices as part of a probe into voter-registration fraud - noting that some forms submitted by ACORN workers included the names of Dallas Cowboys players.

Officials in Lake County, Ind. report that fully 1,100 of 2,000 new voter-registration forms delivered by ACORN were "suspicious."

In Washington state, officials recently closed an investigation into ballot cheating that resulted in prison terms.

ACORN submitted more than 800 phony registration forms in Independence, Mo., with one woman registering 10 times, using three birthdates, four different Social Security numbers and six different phone numbers.

And, as The Post reported Monday, another pro-Obama group, Vote Today Ohio, took advantage of a quirk in that state's law, which allows people to register and vote on the same day without having to prove residency, to drive hundreds of people from homeless shelters and drug-rehab centers to the polls.

And it's being done by a group with which Barack Obama has proudly been associated.

CLEVELAND — Volunteers supporting Barack Obama picked up hundreds of people at homeless shelters, soup kitchens and drug-rehab centers and drove them to a polling place yesterday on the last day that Ohioans could register and vote on the same day, almost no questions asked.

The huge effort by a pro-Obama group, Vote Today Ohio, takes advantage of a quirk in the state's elections laws that allows people to register and cast ballots at the same time without having to prove residency.

Republicans have argued that the window could lead to widespread voter fraud because officials wouldn't have an opportunity to verify registration information before ballots were cast.

Judge Rules Ohio Secretary of State is Breaking Federal Election Law, Must Check for Voter Fraud

A federal judge ruled this evening that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is breaking federal law by not giving county elections boards the chance to determine whether new voter registrations are fraudulent.

In uploading the Ohio Republican Party's request for a court order, Judge George C. Smith of the U.S. District Court in Columbus said, "It is hard to imagine a public interest more compelling than safeguarding the legitimacy of the election of the president of the United States."

Smith said that the Help America Vote Act requires states to not only verify the identity of newly registered voters with the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the federal Social Security Administration, but also to provide counties with the names of new voters whose records did not match.

Jennifer Brunner had been doing verification, but had not made the names available to county elections boards. Judge Smith gave Brunner a week to comply.

Once countries have the list, however, the judge said that he did not have the authority to order them to clean up the voter rolls. He also cited the "millions of qualified electors across the state of Ohio whose confidence in the electoral process will be undermined if new voter registrations are not verified in accordance with HAVA, and if unqualified individuals are permited to cast votes. This would demean the voting process and unlawfully dilute the votes of qualified voters."

Brunner's office said that she is filing an immediate appeal with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals:

“My office will do everything within its power to ensure that the state’s 88 county boards of elections can continue to allow early voting to proceed uninterrupted and to assist them with their preparation to ensure a smooth election for the voters of Ohio."

Smith emphasized the urgency of the situation in light of the deadline next Thursday to challenge absentee voters. On October 25 elections workers can remove ballots from envelops that contain the only identifying information about who cast them.

In announcing his decision, Smith cited questionable activity by one group that has registered thousands of new Ohio voters, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

Kevin DeWine, Ohio Republican Party Deputy Chairman, said the ruling said a lot about Brunner:

“Her refusal to comply with federal law raises serious concerns about her ability to objectively oversee this election. It's especially troubling in light of her connection to ACORN and that group's stunning confession this week of fraudulent registration activity happening right here in Ohio,” he said.

Cleveland Leader

Appeals court sides with Ohio secretary of state

By TERRY KINNEY – 8 hours ago

CINCINNATI (AP) — A federal appeals court sided with Ohio's top elections official Friday in her running battle with Republicans over how to verify the eligibility of newly registered voters.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set aside a federal judge's order a day earlier that Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner institute the means to verify voter registration information and make it available to Ohio's 88 county election boards.

Brunner argued that it would take two to three days to create the necessary computer programs, and that nothing in the Help America Vote Act required her to do what the lower court ordered. A three-judge panel of the appeals court agreed in a split decision.

"With less than a month until the election, and less than two weeks until the beginning of counting absentee ballots, the secretary cannot be required to undertake the extensive reprogramming and other changes to the election mechanics without complete disruption of the electoral process in Ohio," the majority said in its opinion. "The irreparable harm to the voting public caused by the district court's order is equally clear."

On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge George C. Smith in Columbus ordered Brunner to verify new registrations by matching information on them against a database maintained by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration. He also ordered her to establish a process by which the county boards can access the information generated by the checks.

Brunner praised Friday's decision, saying there are sufficient systems in place to verify new-voter registration.

"The ... Court of Appeals has halted another partisan lawsuit in Ohio," she said. "Under the Help America Vote Act, this verification process is not and has not been permitted to be used to determine a voter's eligibility."

The orders stemmed from a lawsuit the Ohio Republican Party filed against Brunner, whom Chairman Bob Bennett called "the most partisan secretary of state in Ohio history."

"It's a shame we don't have transparency in this election. She has done everything she can to help her candidate," Bennett said. "To not even check the registrations is a travesty of the first class."

Bennett said the party's lawyers would determine its next step, including whether to appeal. A message seeking comment was left late Friday at the office of Bill Todd, a lawyer for the party.

AP article

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Appeals court sides with Ohio secretary of state