ACORN's Plan To Turn Registrations Into Votes

While ACORN's record-breaking voter registration campaign - and the partisan attacks which followed - have been much in the news lately, ACORN members and organizers are hard at work conducting extensive Get Out the Vote programs to make sure that ACORN members, new registrants, immigrant citizens, young people, and infrequent voters in low-income and minority communities participate in this historic election. Below are some highlights of our work:

All of ACORN's voter mobilization programs target new registrants and infrequent voters. Many voters reached by these GOTV initiatives will have been registered by ACORN's 2007-8 voter registration drive, which collected 1.3 million registration applications.

ACORN has focused its 2008 Voter Education and Mobilization Program on three sets of voters: 1) those who participated in only one of three recent major elections; 2) inactive voters registered since 2004; and 3) citizens registered since November 2006

Between the different tracks of this program, ACORN organizers and members in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Ohio, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and other states are working to engage more than 250,000 voters with at least two personal contacts (one phone, one door-knock) between now and Election Day.

In addition, phone and mail programs will reach hundreds of thousands of new and infrequent voters in 11 states - including many of ACORN's new registrants - to encourage voting and provide polling place information to new voters.

ACORN members and canvassers are working to distribute more than half a million fliers and door-hangers with the 1-866-OUR-VOTE and www.govote.org (www.veavotar.com for Spanish speakers) election protection number and website to help ACORN's constituents understand their voting rights, bring proper identification, and find their polling place.

In addition to our overall program, ACORN is working through the We Are America Alliance to focus on Latino, Asian, and New American communities in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, and Washington. ACORN canvassers are making multiple passes in targeted neighborhoods, with supplemental phone calls and mail pieces repeating the messages communicated in-person. In Colorado and Arizona, our programs will mobilize voters to increase turn-out and help defeat harmful ballot initiatives: a predatory lending deregulation bill (AZ), four anti-labor ballot Initiatives (CO), and an affirmative action ban (CO).

Voter Education efforts about predatory lending, jobs, the economy, and other economic justice issues will help diverse voters in MN, NM, CO, MI, and elsewhere make informed choices regarding ballot initiatives (such as state income tax decreases that will negatively affect public education, right to unionize measures, and state amendments on predatory lending practices) and public policy so they can later hold politicians accountable to ACORN constituents and other low-income voters.

ACORN is also conducting a study, assisted by the Analyst Institute, that will measure the effectiveness of large-scale canvass and phone voter mobilization programs around the country, representing the largest research analysis of its kind.

We want to assure you that partisan attacks will NOT interfere with ACORN members' determination to involve low-income, minority, and new American voters across the country. On the contrary, our members are more determined than ever to make our voices heard this year and in all election years to come.

You can help us make sure that our voices are heard by going here and giving a donation of whatever you can afford! And you can still stand with ACORN against the attacks from the Right by going here to sign the petition telling John McCain to stop the smears and by watching and forwarding around ACORN's first-ever TV commercial, which aims to fight voter suppression from the McCain campaign.

Together we can ensure the biggest turnout in American history and change the course of our country.

Comments

[knowBuddhaU]

KNOCK-KNOCK [opportunities for Enlightenment knock on the doors of our senses day and night]

(who's there?) [Thinking our selves isolated, we fear and question them]

AMERICA! [Some opportunities make themselves hard to ignore ;-]

(um, erica who?) [Cellf-imprisoned, we question those who come to our aid]

KNOW! AMERICA YOU!

[katocat]

The first thing I did when the Republicans started this attack on ACORN was to go to their website and join.

[NationalTreasure]

ACORN

the mighty oak will not be broken by the republican hypocrites who have attempted to smear, defam, discredit and destroy ACORN

there are millions of Americans who have registered through ACORN through the years and who have benefited from the community organizing that ACORN has done and all of these Americans know the truth about what a valued service ACORN provdes to our democracy and stand behind ACORN

ACORN fight on

[knowBuddhaU]

The Results are In: We Were Robbed
http://www.harpers.org/#hbc-90003801
"Our nation"s current problems started with a whiff of sulfur on Election Day 2000. Americans went to the polls in substantial numbers and voted, by a margin of over a half million votes, to put Al Gore in the White House. But our election machinery seriously misfired. Down in Florida, more than a hundred thousand voters who went to the polls to vote, very largely for Vice President Gore, had their votes cast aside"through a combination of chicanery, voter purging, intimidation, and other obnoxious tricks in a quantum just sufficient to put George W. Bush and Dick Cheney into the White House. In the wake of that election, the mainstream media ridiculed accusations of fraud associated with black-box voting as tin-hatted lunacy. In the years that followed, however, the "conspiracy theorists" were very substantially vindicated: the black-box voting process that had spread throughout the country was revealed to be a petri dish for vote fraud. In a series of demonstrations, academics at Princeton and other institutions showed that vote tampering and manipulation of the results using this technology was child"s play.

***Moreover, the experts are now largely in accord that in 2000, 2002, and 2004, manipulation of black-box voting systems almost certainly occurred, affecting a number of races. It was one of the most serious assaults on the integrity of the democratic process in our country"s history.*** (emphasis added)

[donndublin]

You guys are still playing the "they stole the elections" card to justify your need to retaliate and steal it yourself this time. Those academics at Princeton have only shown how either side can manipulate the results. The chads were hung up because someone was trying to punch several cards at a time. It's been proven that it almost never happens went it is done legally punching only one card. Those hung up chads were mostly votes for Gore. The majority of the areas contested were dominated and controlled by the Democrats. You should look at the details before you make your speculative accusations.

[knowBuddhaU]

DN!: How do you know that?

MCM: Well, I know because there"s been an audit of the vote in eighteen counties of Ohio by a researcher named Richard Hayes Phillips, who had his team literally scrutinize every single ballot that was warehoused in eighteen Ohio counties. They took over 30,000 digital photographs. This is not speculation, Amy. This is a meticulous, careful, specific and conclusive demonstration that John Kerry actually won some 200,000 votes in those eighteen counties only that were taken away from him. Bush"s official victory margin, you may recall, was about 118,000. So there is no question about it. Ohio was stolen.

DN!: When they"OK, so they have the pictures of all these"

MCM: Pictures, there"s a CD with this book that you can"

DN!: But they have the pictures of the ballots.

MCM: Of the variously altered, mutilated ballots, yes. Ballots with stickers placed over the square that people had blacked in for Kerry/Edwards; somebody else blacks in Bush/Cheney. Thousands and thousands of ballots that were pre-marked before they were distributed, so that people would mark different boxes on them, and then they would be invalidated.

Even more chilling is the fact that after Phillips did his research, the boards of elections in fifty-five Ohio counties destroyed all or some of their ballots in defiance of a court order. So we have criminal behavior here of a kind of grand and systematic kind.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/22/votes

[knowBuddhaU]

"To make matters still worse, Montgomery County [PA] forces voters to use the Sequoia Voting Systems' faulty, error-prone, hackable AVC Advantage DRE touch-screen voting machines. Those are the same machines that wouldn't start up at all in New Jersey on Super Tuesday this year, delaying Governor John Corzine, and countless other voters', ability to cast a vote at all for nearly an hour on the morning of primary day.

"The same Sequoia machines in New Jersey also reportedly flipped votes from Obama to Clinton that day, before proceeding to misreport vote totals in dozens of counties, and even lose votes entirely, as reported by Princeton University in their recently released court-ordered analysis of the Advantage machines.

"As a consequence of these flaws," the computer scientists at Princeton wrote, "voters were disenfranchised." The report was commissioned as part of a lawsuit by NJ election integrity advocates, the court ordered it's release just last week. The researchers were also able to pick the lock on the machine in 13 seconds, and do so without breaking the machine's security seals."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/pa-counties-said-unprepar_b_139815.html

[knowBuddhaU]

My fellow sincere HuffPosters, if you have doubts about a participant in our discussions, you can check their profile. You can read their other comments.
You can flag their profile as abusive.

Don't let 'em push your buttons!

THINK! Remember the Pentagon's Message Force Multiplier program?

Attacks come in all forms. Be on your guard today especially.

[donndublin]

I see that you practice the Obama/ACORN "Message Force Mulitplier program". This is an example of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" . This stategy is a method to "cover your trail" by accusing the oposition of your actions.

[knowBuddhaU]

What part of my name don't you get?

[knowBuddhaU]

O sister my Sister Bertha! You are my heroine. You've lifted the Spirit of America to new heights. I bow deeply in your virtual direction (hold still a sec, k? I'm north of Seattle, Ethereal Net traffic is heavy today).

I write this as a response to Walt Whitman's poem to Lincoln. "O captain, my Captain!" O my fellow citizen, my noble Leader. Mine, however, isn't so patriarchal.

Here's how I say it. today.

O Sister! My Sister

[First voice: Osiris speaks to his beloved Isis; second voice: Luke speaks to his sister, Leia Skywalker; third voice: we all speak with one voice; fourth voice: Being Aware of Becoming.]

My sister is my Goddess;
My sister is my Wife.

My sister is my Princess,
For whom
I bear
ALL STRIFE!

My sister is my
Mother!
Beyond whom

There is no

Other.

In sum, O Sister! my Sister! my Sister is my
L I F E!

dp

[mmgbizgirl]

Keep marching on like Barack Obama has. No matter what they say, no matter what they do. Keep marching. I think your organization does great work for the community.

[donndublin]

Are you a part of Obama's civilian security force? That reminds me of the marching facists. If you keep denying the truth, I keep clinging to my guns and religion.

[knowBuddhaU]

So, by your logic, marching bands are fascist, too? Heaven help us on the 4th of July!

Strange comment for one who is "clinging to his guns and religion."

How can you tell which is which? Do you use your religion as a weapon, too?

[donndublin]

Why are Hillary supporters are so angry. Check out the website Hillbuzz for more information.

There are allegations by DEOMCRATS not Republicans that ACORN was involved in voter fraud during the primary caucuses. According to thousands of complaints filed by Democratic pariticipants, ACORN afilliated participants were illegally bused across state lines to Iowa, Texas and other states that Obama won. There are ongoing investigations in Texas and other states right now.

[Bertha Lewis - Huffpost Blogger]

That is absolutely bogus. ACORN does not do this and this is nothing but one more false accusation against the organization. ACORN doesn't even operate in Iowa and was not a participant in any kind of caucus mobilization plan in that state.

Please present proof of these outrageous accusations or cease making them.

[freedomfighter1]

ACORN is a great organizaton! The attacks that the Repubs have aimed at ACORN will not bear out.

[bigmadd]

the republican fear is the more Americans VOTE they lose. that is why thet hate ACORN, they don't care that ACORN is doing good stuff ! they have to try to stop the masses from VOTING! WE VOTE THEY LOSE! PLEASE VOTE ! BRING ID BRING UTILITY BILL WITH YOU ! LET"S WIN

[Dolphyn]

Thank you, Bertha and ACORN.

[TMann99821]

I think it's great that low-income, minority, and new American vote. However, since A C O R N claims to be non-partisan and receives $25 Million in taxpayer money, they urge registrants to vote Democratic. Also people like Maxine Waters and the A C O R N leaders spoke about electing Obama at their convention.

A quote from Maxine Waters during a hearing on the GSE's where Republican's wanted more regulation of them. Remember, this is before the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"We have gone through dozens of hearings which we were frankly trying to fix something that wasn't broke. Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac and particularly at Fannie Mae under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines."

[Kassandra]

I don't think that's true. But the Republicans are scared of the people so, any huge turnout is going to turn them off.

Freddie and Fannie were lying, just like ENRON did. whatcha gonna do? If a company cooks it's books, well...... lotta book cookin' been goin' on. You and I lose. Where's MY golden parachute?

[TMann99821]

What do you think is not true?

Enron was a PRIVATE company and many executives went to Federal Prison along with paying millions in fines.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25624-2002Jan10.html

Fannie and Freddie are Government Sponsored Enterprises ( GSE's). So far, no one from Fannie or Freddie have faced any charges whatsoever. Including Frank Raines who got a $10 Million bonus after "cooking the books."

In fact, it was Congress that flatly rejected President Bush's call more than five years ago to reform the GSEs. Over the years, the President's repeated attempts to reform the supervision of these entities were thwarted by the legislative maneuvering of those who emphatically denied there were problems with the GSEs.

[Bertha Lewis - Huffpost Blogger]

More lies.

ACORN's website has the truth.

Federal Funding: http://www.acorn.org/?id=17857
The financial crisis: http://www.acorn.org/?id=17858

[OneTop]

I sure hope Stephen Colbert helps out as well.

[GoldStarMom]

Congratulations on your efforts to try to get most, if not all, Americans registered to vote. Sadly, there were a few "bad apples" who were to lazy to actually do what they were SUPPOSED to do - register voters - who decided the easy way out was to submit fictitious registrations instead. I commend your group on your efforts to remove them from your employ and assist in seeing they were prosecuted, if it was warranted. I know, from first hand observation, that MANY organizations - as well as businesses - have SOME employees who seem to spend more time and effort in avoiding work than they would expend if they ACTUALLY did the work required of them.

Since your efforts are concentrated on population groups - "new registrants, immigrant citizens, young people, and infrequent voters in low-income and minority communities" who typically vote for Democratic candidates by a large majority, I can understand how Republicans would like to see your efforts minimalized or eliminated. It's a shame they can't look past party partisanship to see this as an effort to enable more of our citizens to participate in what may be their greatest right and freedom, the right to vote. Perhaps the fault lies not in your efforts, but in their efforts to fail to promote candidates who more clearly reflect the values of our nation's voting population.

[ProudNeoCon]

I am a Republican, yet I respect Sen. Obama even if I disagree with him. I have a deep respect for many leftist organisations. I have no respect for ACORN. ACORN pretends to be apolitical in order to get federal money, yet clearly has political agenda. Their people cheat and lie. It is an organisation which prospered in the desperate Democratic party which kept loosing and was willing to do anything to have a chance. Now that Democrats are on the winning it is time for them to clean up their act and get rid of ACORN

[drumz]

Your ignorance about ACORN is expected coming from a moniker like yours. You are simply spewing right wing talking points. Your labeling things leftist is a joke, nothing but a lemming.

[sallyntx]

I was so glad to see this article. Acorn is an organization that should be respected. They do much good.

[MTPockets75]

Voter registration is just one of the many important functions that Acorn serves. They aid low income families by providing a voice that demands fair housing, wages, and services that are often denied to poor people. A fake registration doesn't lead to a fake vote. ACORN is apolitical, but birds of a feather flock together, and Democrats are more likely to support the same causes than Republicans. Repubs = me, me, me. Dems = us, us, us.

[ProudNeoCon]

Would you give a guy a fake license or a gun permit? After all fake license does not lead to accident, fake gun permit does not lead to shooting...

If ACORN is apolitical then Chaney is independent....

[kyllroy]

Think about it in a slightly different way. The huge number of potential ACORN target voters in Louisiana were not affected by ANY great numbers in this election.
The reason? The belief that no matter what they do that their government will let them down.
Mr Bush and the rescue plan not only failed them in the worst disaster on record, they did it in the eyes of the world, the eyes of the nation, and the eyes of the children, now coming of voting age.

Groups like ACORN can ask these affected by recession and disaster to get out the vote, but they can't make them. The message of hope with teamwork needs to go out. I am white and see this as a huge letdown, especially when you see voter suppression attempt to dampen hope in many areas of inner city and the poor rural areas.

Nothing even comes close to the number of potential voters still untapped.

[katocat]

I'll bet you were not too worried about cleaning up Bush's act the last 8 years.

[Bertha Lewis - Huffpost Blogger]

I am sorry you feel that way about the organization, but I think some of it might be based on misinformation.

First, ACORN has never pretended to be anything other than what it is: a membership organization of poor people fighting for kitchen-table issues. It has always worked to involve our members and their communities in the electoral process.

Second, ACORN's only Federal funding comes as sub-contracts on grants awarded as part of a competitive process where our participation is clear and transparent..

Third, ACORN is not a part of the Democratic Party and never will be. It is accountable to its members and its members only. It has cooperated with every investigation into its voter registration staff and will continue to do so.