Blue Spot

Death threat, vandalism hit ACORN after accusations | MiamiHerald.com

WASHINGTON -- The furor over the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now's national voter registration drive exploded with new controversies Friday, including a call by Barack Obama for an independent prosecutor, a Supreme Court ruling over voter access and the disclosure of a death threat against an ACORN worker.

What remains unclear is whether the presidential campaigns of Democrat Obama and Republican John McCain will reach a truce over voter access to the polls by Election Day or whether their legal and rhetorical battles will persist to the finish line - or beyond.

Republicans allege that ACORN is engaged in rampant voter fraud, but they've offered no proof of such a systematic effort. The GOP does have evidence that some of the group's 13,000 canvassers submitted fraudulent applications, but ACORN says it alerted authorities to most of the phony forms.

Democrats counter that the GOP is trying to whip up fears of voter fraud so it can knock students and low-income minorities off the voter rolls to enhance McCain's chances of victory.

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled an attempt by Republicans to challenge the validity of 200,000 voter registrations in Ohio, saying that the party lacked the standing to sue.

The Republicans had sued to force Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, to provide county election officials with lists of registrants whose personal information did not exactly match Social Security or driver's license data, a step that would leave those voters vulnerable to eligibility challenges.

Tensions began to escalate Thursday with disclosures that the FBI is investigating ACORN and the possibility that it's engaged in a vote-fraud scheme.

On Friday, Obama's legal counsel, Robert Bauer, wrote Attorney General Michael Mukasey, charging that the inquiry is politically motivated and that it risks repeating the 2007 scandal over the Bush administration's politicization of the Justice Department.

Bauer asked Mukasey to broaden a special prosecutor's investigation to examine the origin of the ACORN inquiry.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment, except to say: "We will review the letter."

Earlier Friday, ACORN told McClatchy that one of its senior staffers in Cleveland had received a death threat and that its Boston and Seattle offices had been vandalized sometime Thursday, reflecting the mounting tensions over the group's role in registering 1.3 million mostly poor and minority Americans to vote.

ACORN attorneys drafted a letter alerting the FBI and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division of the incidents, said Brian Kettenring, a Florida-based spokesman for the group.

Labels: General Election 2008, Supreme Court, voter registration, voting rights

ACORN office in Vegas raided in voter-fraud probe - San Jose Mercury News

LAS VEGAS—Nevada authorities seized documents and records Tuesday in a raid on the Las Vegas headquarters of a community organization that works to get low-income people to vote.
Secretary of State Ross Miller said the raid was part of a monthslong voter fraud investigation of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which he said submitted fraudulent registrations, including forms for the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team.

"Tony Romo is not registered to vote in the state of Nevada, and anybody trying to pose as Terrell Owens won't be able to cast a ballot on Nov. 4," Miller said.

Miller said other voter registration forms used false names or information, or had duplicated information on multiple forms. Some of the forms were obvious frauds, Miller said, but he did not give an estimate of how many fakes were submitted.

Bertha Lewis, interim chief organizer for ACORN, said the group has been working with election officials to weed out fraudulent forms from the canvassers it hires to register voters.

"Today's raid by the secretary of state's office is a stunt that serves no useful purpose other than to discredit our work registering Nevadans," Lewis said.

The group received a subpoena two weeks ago seeking information on 15 employees who the ACORN group had previously flagged for turning in suspicious voter applications, Lewis said in a statement.

"For the past 10 months, anytime ACORN has identified a potentially fraudulent application, we turn that application in to election officials separately and offer to provide election officials with the information they would need to pursue an investigation or prosecution of the individual," Lewis said.

Lewis said ACORN turned in 46 problem applications submitted by 33 former employees to election officials in the Las Vegas area, where it has registered 80,000 people.

Labels: voter registration, voting rights

The Associated Press: Officials say Fla., Mich. delegates will get half-votes

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Party leaders agreed Saturday seat Michigan and Florida delegates with half votes into this summer's convention with a compromise that left Barack Obama on the verge of the nomination but riled Hillary Rodham Clinton backers who threatened to fight to the August convention.

"Hijacking four delegates is not a good way to start down the path of party unity," said adviser Harold Ickes.

Clinton's camp maintains she was entitled to four additional Michigan delegates.

The decision by the party's Rules Committee raised slightly the total delegates Obama needs to clinch the nomination. Clinton advisers conceded privately he will likely hit the magic number after the final primaries are held Tuesday night, but said the ruling threatened to dash any hopes of a unified party.

"Mrs. Clinton has told me to reserve her right to take this to the Credentials Committee" at the convention, said Ickes, who is a member of the Rules Committee that voted Saturday.

The resolution increased the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination to 2,118, leaving Obama just 66 delegates away from the majority needed to secure the nomination.

Clinton's camp insisted Obama shouldn't get any pledged delegates in Michigan since he chose not to put his name on the ballot, and she should get 73 pledged delegates with 55 uncommitted. Obama's team insisted the only fair solution was to split the pledged delegates in half between the two campaigns, with 64 each.

The committee agreed on a compromise offered by the Michigan Democratic Party that would split the difference, allowing Clinton to take 69 delegates and Obama 59. Each delegate would get half a vote at the convention, according to the deal.

The deal passed 19-8. Thirteen members of the committee had endorsed Clinton for president, so she wasn't even able to keep her supporters together.

Allan Katz, a Rules Committee member and Obama supporter, said the Obama campaign had enough votes on the committee to support the campaign's proposal to split the delegates 50-50 in Michigan. Ultimately, the campaign agreed instead to support the compromise negotiated by the Michigan Democratic Party as a way to resolve the matter.

"The ironic thing is Obama had the majority of that committee," Katz said. "The Obama campaign wants to move on and compromise. We did not muscle our way through it. It was a wise decision from a well run and wise campaign that will reverberate."

But the irate reaction from Clinton's campaign and her supporters in the sharply divided audience shows Obama will have a long way to go to bring the party together after a long and divisive primary.

"We just blew the election!" a woman in the audience shouted. The crowd was divided between cheering Obama supporters and booing Clinton supporters.

"This isn't unity! Count all the votes!" another audience member yelled.

Jim Roosevelt, co-chair of the committee, tried repeatedly to gavel it to order. "You are dishonoring your candidate when you disrupt the speakers," he chided.

There are three primaries left in the contest — Puerto Rico on Sunday and Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday. Obama should get at least 30 delegates in the remaining primaries, meaning he has to pick up no more than about 30 more superdelegates even if he loses Puerto Rico and South Dakota.

He will not clinch the nomination this weekend, barring a barrage of superdelegates Sunday.

The committee also unanimously agreed to seat the Florida delegation based on the outcome of the January primary, with 105 pledged delegates for Clinton and 67 for Obama, but with each delegate getting half a vote as a penalty.

Proponents of full seating continuously interrupted the committee members as they explained their support of the compromise, then supporters of the deal shouted back.

"Shut up!" one woman shouted at another.

"You shut up!" the second woman shouted back.

Obama picked up a total of 32 delegates in Michigan, including superdelegates who have already committed, and 36 in Florida. Clinton picked up 38 in Michigan, including superdelegates, and 56.5 in Florida.

Obama's total increased to 2,052, and Clinton had 1,877.5.

A proposal favored by Clinton that would have fully seated the Florida delegation fully in accordance with the January primary went down with 12 votes in support and 15 against.

Tina Flournoy, who led Clinton's efforts to seat both states' delegations with full voting power, said she was disappointed by the outcome but knew the Clinton position had "no chance" of passing the committee.

"I understand the rules. ... I can tell you one thing that has driven these rules was being a party of inclusion," Flournoy said. "I wish my colleagues will vote differently."

Alice Huffman, a Clinton supporter on the committee, explained that the compromise giving delegates half votes was the next best thing to full seating.

"We will leave here more united than we came," she said.

Some audience members heckled her in response. "Lipstick on a pig!" one shouted.

Associated Press writer Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.

Labels: DNC, Election 2008, Florida, superdelegates, voting rights

Just a quick note, there's a recurring talking point coming from the Obama side regarding FL, and that is that we should respect the voters who did not show up for their election. Donna Brazile brought this up while questioning State Sen. Arthenia Joyner after Joyner's presentation and plea to count every vote cast. The flawed insinuation is that only Obama supporters stayed home. How can they be sure Clinton would have not turned out even more votes if they were allowed to campaign.

Labels: DNC, Election 2008, Florida, superdelegates, voting rights

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Pro-Clinton protestors make their way to Washington « - Blogs from CNN.com

WASHINGTON (CNN) — After weeks of planning by unions, women’s rights groups and others supporting Hillary Clinton's push to seat Florida and Michigan delegates at the Democratic convention this summer, supporters of the New York senator's presidential bid arrived in the nation’s capital by the busload Friday in advance of rallies outside Saturday's Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting.

“I’m hoping we restore 100 percent of the delegates from both Michigan and Florida and the popular vote will also be restored,” said Karen Feldman, an organizer of the “Count Every Vote” rally. “…I firmly believe that in Florida that was the purest election we’ve ever had, and I think that those votes should stand where they are and should be counted the way they are.”

Florida Demands Representation, another sponsoring group pushing for the January 29 vote to be recognized by the national party, said Friday it was expecting 400 to 500 supporters to arrive by Saturday. “The Democratic party is in danger in Florida,” said organizer James Hannagan.

The seating of the Florida and Michigan delegations is a priority for Clinton, who won both unsanctioned contests and is currently trailing frontrunner Barack Obama by 202 delegates in the latest CNN count.

Hannagan said that if Clinton is not the Democratic nominee, some members of his forum will vote for McCain, write in Hillary’s name or not vote at all.

The Clinton campaign has tacitly encouraged pressure on RBC members meeting to resolve the controversy, but has denied any role in protests planned for Saturday.

Labels: DNC, Election 2008, Florida, Hillary, superdelegates, voting rights

Labels: Election 2008, Obama supporters, voting rights

On August 25th, 2007, during the DNC Rules & Bylaws Meeting, in Washington, D.C., plans for the Florida 2008 Democratic National Convention were reviewed. They voted to invalidate FL delagates at the 2008 convention despite a compelling argument from Florida Democratic Party Chairman, Karen Thurman, that they were not in non-compliance due to Republican politicians' actions.

When you get to about 14 minutes, it's astonishing to see how determined Donna Brazile is to see the voters of Florida punished for moving the primary date up. She actually yells out, "I'm going to send a message to everybody in Florida".

It looks like she's going to land up sending a message to the whole country.

Labels: DNC, donna brazile, Florida, voting rights