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| (UK) 5/09 - Six men jailed for insert... |
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10483
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, May 3, 2009 - 6:00 pm: | 
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They created hundreds of false names and inserted them into the voter list. The question I couldn't find an answer to in this article is: Were these men insiders, working in the election office with the voter list? If not, how did they insert hundreds of false names -- by creating bogus registration forms like ACORN?
Massive computerized voter lists such as those we use in the U.S. would seem to be particularly prone to stuffing if it's done by insiders, especially in locations with Internet-based voter registration and places that fight release of the voter lists.
BBC News - May 1, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/8029979.stm
Six men jailed for election fraud
Six men have been jailed for charges relating to election fraud during a council vote in Berkshire.
The charges related to an election in the Slough Central ward in May 2007 where Labour councillor Lydia Simmons lost her seat to Tory Raja Khan.
Raja Khan, along with two others, had previously admitted the offences. Three other men were convicted by a jury.
The men, all from Slough, were jailed for between four-and-a-half years and four months at Reading Crown Court.
The court heard they created hundreds of false names in the weeks running up to the local election and entered them on the voter register.
Raja Khan, 52, of Oban Court, Montem Lane, was jailed for three and a half years after admitting conspiracy to defraud the returning officer and perjury.
The sentences handed down show the seriousness with which the police, courts and prosecuting authorities take electoral fraud
Peter Wardle, chief executive of the Electoral Commission
He has since been expelled from the Conservative Party.
Gul Nawaz Khan, 58, of Richmond Crescent, pleaded guilty to perjury and was jailed for eight months.
Mohammed Basharat Khan, 46, of Mirador Crescent, admitted conspiracy to defraud the returning officer and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. He was jailed for three years and four months.
Arshad Raja, 53, of Broadmark Road, was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the returning officer. He was given an 18-month prison sentence.
Mahboob Khan, 46, of Quinbrookes, was convicted of conspiracy to defraud, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and perjury. He was jailed for four years and six months.
Altaf Khan, 32, of Knolton Way, was found guilty of impersonation but not guilty of conspiracy to defraud the returning officer. He was jailed for four months.
'Relatively rare'
Peter Wardle, chief executive of the Electoral Commission, said: "The sentences handed down today show the seriousness with which the police, courts and prosecuting authorities take electoral fraud.
"Although it is important to stress that electoral fraud is relatively rare, we want every voter to be confident that their vote is secure.
"The Electoral Commission will continue to work with the police and others to prevent and deal with fraud."
Yasar Mumtaz, 20, of Wellesley Road, was cleared of conspiracy to defraud the returning officer.
Former deputy mayor Mohammed Aziz, 50, of Wellesley Road, was found not guilty on the direction of the judge of conspiracy to defraud the returning officer after the jury had failed to reach a verdict.
The prosecution said it would not be seeking a retrial the the case of Mr Aziz. |
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 402
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, May 9, 2009 - 12:14 am: |
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Bev writes, "....by creating bogus registration forms like ACORN?"
Bev, do you have information that ACORN created bogus registration forms? If so, since there are at least two ongoing prosecutions of ACORN, you should submit that information to the proper authorities, as should anyone else with such information.
As far as I know, ACORN identified and flagged, as required, bogus applications that were filled out by people they hired to register voters. The charges against ACORN have to do with the way that they paid people for gathering legitimate voter registrations, and has nothing to do with bogus registration forms.
I rather doubt that the UK allows ordinary citizens or citizen groups like ACORN to actually enter names in the voter register. Only elections officials can do that. Some of the convictions are for conspiracy to defraud the elections officer (the returning officer) into entering bogus names in the voter rolls.
This is a serious crime and we take it seriously here also. So if you, Kurt, or anyone else, has ANY information that ACORN attempted to create bogus registration forms, neglected to flag bogus registration forms, failed to fire anyone found to have submitted bogus registration forms to ACORN, submitted bogus registration forms without flagging them, or in ANY way attempted to persuade elections officials to enter bogus registrations in the voter rolls, PLEASE give such information to the proper authorities immediately so that they can add those charges to the current prosecutions.
And if you have no such information, please don't say that they did something that they haven't even been accused of.
Kurt has alleged in another thread that when he worked as an elections official, he saw many improper forms submitted by ACORN. Kurt also said that he is "ecstatic" that ACORN is being prosecuted, so I rather doubt that he would have withheld any information about criminal activity on the part of ACORN from the proper authorities. He said he complained to his boss, but since Kurt is very concerned about criminal activity, I think that if he knew of ANY criminal activity, of any kind on the part of ACORN, he would report it to law enforcement if his superiors didn't act on such information. If Kurt knew of crimes, reported them to his superiors, and when his superior failed to act, kept silent himself, allowing bogus registration forms to be entered in the voter rolls, he is guilty of knowingly allowing election fraud while serving as an elections officer.
If you or Kurt have any information whatsoever that ACORN has done anything of a criminal nature, other than the current allegations against them for the manner in which they paid people for gathering legitimate voter registrations (which has yet to be adjudicated and of which they must be presumed innocent until proven guilty) and you are withholding such information from the proper authorities, you are aiding and abetting them by covering up such crimes.
I have heard of cases where Democrats and Republicans were found to have tampered with voter registration forms, by inserting the name of their respective parties on those forms instead of allowing the registrants to select their own party affiliation, but I've never heard of anyone who wasn't gathering voter registrations for a political party doing so.
Even if you have no supporting evidence, if you have good reason to believe that ACORN created bogus registration forms, please take your suspicions to the proper authorities so that they can investigate them and either substantiate them or disprove them. I have no love for ACORN myself because they encourage people to vote in sham U.S. elections where there is no legal or Constitutional requirement that the votes be counted before candidates are sworn into office, but I don't like partisan smear campaigns.
How can anyone who is aware of election fraud, but does nothing to report it to the proper authorities, be trusted to investigate election fraud? |
Joel Morine
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 301
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, May 9, 2009 - 9:38 am: |
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There is another potential explanation here...
that I'll offer with no intent to choose or advocate any interpretation given the nature of info available to me...
w/ reference to the whole general picture of ACORN, this UK story, & various other registration-stuffing schemes that seemed more clearly the doing of insiders during last years election season.
The model is found in (1) COINTELPRO activities of 50s-70s, & (2) in many egs in Phillip Agee's CIA Diary.
Infiltrating grassroots organizations with individualistic sensibilities that are largely dependent on either volunteers or participants paid so little they might better be described as semi-volunteers than employees... is especially easy ... all the moreso for ruthless organizations playing w/ huge amounts of unaccountable taxpayer cash. The process in both the above cited cases was to infiltrate the organizations & do a variety of soon-public deeds that could be attributed by choral press followups to the organization whose operations were thereby compromised by this operation. Agee describes a CIA network of doubly-paid columnists who would pick up such pre-planned staged stories & re-run new aspects of them for weeks. The range of staged events was expressed by the eg I personally found most extreme ... bombing a church to blame it on a group of community organizers. When this same CIA-created & managed bombing-group was caught red-handed by police on a next variation of the same style of mission, that didn't make the papers.
Cointelpro efforts in anti-war organizations in early 70s bought its influence in such organization w/ UStax$$s, to push the sorts of hot-headed braggy confrontational fool agendas that more serious organizers judged as self-defeating ... a strategy mirrored in press choices to make TimLeary a Time-appointed hero/leader of a generation of activists decidedly disinterested in having hero-leaders, & especially not the self-magnifying ego-tripping sort Tim Leary was. See Abbie Hoffman, Bernadette Dohrn & others for further egs.
There were a plethora of local organizers w/ no taste for notoriety who fed communities' courage & strategies for making the many serious changes accomplished then that have sustained forward momentum since.
Along the same strategy vector described above, is a specific method applied in response to Agee's Inside the Company: CIA Diary ... a plethora of look-alikes that feed different purposes, selling real-politik justifications in the guise of expose' .
I suggest something similar may be at work in the ACORN story. That individual members have been caught delivering false registration forms is not necessarily an indication that this was an organizational direction, intent, strategy. All it takes is some individuals [doubly paid scammers can afford to stick longer than those only earning semi-volunteer pay] w/ an inside knowledge that they personally will not be targeted for prosecution, or if they are will be off the hook after they've had their day filling their on-stage role. Now you have a falsely-manufactured, taxpayer-financed talking point for destroying a grassroots organization.
But beyond that,
from the catbird seat of having a huge flow of unaccounted tax$$s
[to apply to the task of protecting one's huge flow of unaccounted tax$$s]
there are several useful purposes to having a huge number and wide range of notorious events that could be but aren't actually employed to defraud elections.
It wastes resources of citizen groups & their volunteer contributor$$s [as compared to groups spending legit.govt$$s to investigate & prosecute -- or not -- where they choose + huge blackbox$$s to create as many false leads to investigate as other illegitimate backstage scammers wish to create].
[A prime purpose of COINTELPRO was to educate specific individuals in legit law enforcement systems to the values & purposes of CIA-created faux-leftist lookalike organizations...& clue them in to which were faux & how police might best dance with them to most effect in each situation...& reinforce their ideological sympathies w/ tax-free tax-financed cash-in-hand 2nd salaries, or arrange other such rewards].
It creates experiences that go something like -- yeah there are lots of anomalies, but no smoking guns, & we elected a reform guy despite it all ... which are popular among those w/ little stomach for digging in to earn their democracy thru self-activating self-informed participation.
The combination of the above, in sum, normalizes anomalous suspicious events ...
setting us up for future floods of anomalous events that do deliver fraudulent ?goods? -- "bads" would be the word
&
providing a blackboxtax$$$s-financed smokescreen that effectively disguises a few real frauds.
The strategy is old in another venue ... Look at the role of nuisance law-suits in GM's efforts to control patents to the internal combustion engine... Internal Combustion by Edwin Black has one account. |
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 405
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, May 9, 2009 - 4:45 pm: |
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It is certainly possible that COINTELPRO-style operations paid people to sabotage ACORN, as that is a fully documented and time-honored tactic, as are nuisance lawsuits and politically motivated prosecutions.
There's an October 2008 assessment of the hullabaloo about ACORN here:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/acorn_accusations.html
The article basically concludes that ACORN as an organization did not create bogus registration forms, but had lax oversight policies and was cheated by employees who wanted to be paid without having to work. It does not speculate as to whether those workers were just lazy or were planted saboteurs.
I would certainly put unsubstantiated, false, or reckless allegations in the class of partisan activities, but partisanship is usually acceptable outside of government offices, nonpartisan venues, or organizations which declare themselves nonpartisan for tax or other purposes. A more serious matter would be withholding information or evidence regarding crimes from the proper authorities and I hope that nobody here would do such a thing.
BBV does have a policy against anyone spreading disinformation, defined as someone who:
- Repeats provably incorrect assertions, without citing sources or providing documentation, even after others have corrected the record.
- Combines misleading and undocumented statements with personal attacks or speculation about the motivations of other.
I hope that in the future, unsourced and undocumented allegations about ACORN as an organization, along with attributions of motivation to ACORN, will cease. Documented facts are always welcome, but should not be withheld from the proper authorities whether or not one believes that such authorities will act on them. If the authorities do not act, that should be documented also, as it may be evidence of complicity. |
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 407
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, May 9, 2009 - 5:28 pm: |
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This is from the ACORN webpage and should be considered as such:
3. In nearly every case that has been reported, it was ACORN that discovered the bad forms, and called them to the attention of election authorities, putting the forms in a package that identified them in writing as suspicious, encouraging election officials to investigate, and offering to help with prosecutions. We are required by law to turn in all forms, but instead of just turning them in and figuring that it is the responsibility of the board of elections to figure out which are valid, we spend millions of dollars verifying that forms are valid, and then separate out those that are suspicious.
If the only "flagging" that ACORN is allowed to do involves examining suspicious registration forms, identifying such forms in a separate letter to elections officials, and putting them in a separate package, I can see nothing that would stop an unscrupulous elections official from removing those forms from the separate package and adding them to the packages of forms which were not flagged. I have no reason to think this has ever been done, but I see no reason that it couldn't be done, as ACORN is required in many states to return flagged forms to elections officials, but is not allowed to mark or flag them in any way that is permanent and provides visible evidence that they were flagged. Unfortunately, since the only ones with the authority to decide which forms are valid are elections officials, ACORN cannot simply tear up invalid forms or mark "VOID" on them with a big black or red indelible marker.
This reminds me somewhat of chain-of-custody procedures in criminal cases. When a law enforcement officer confiscates evidence in a criminal case, they are required to put it in a bag or container that can be indelibly marked so that the custody of the evidence can be traced. If officers were barred from identifying such evidence, there could be no chain of custody. In the case of voter registration forms, since ACORN is apparently barred from marking or otherwise indelibly identifying flagged forms, there is no visible proof that they were flagged by ACORN.
Could unscrupulous elections officials remove voter registration forms from the separate package, claim to have spotted those forms themselves, and claim that ACORN submitted those forms without separating them? That appears to be the case. But apart from the letter identifying such forms, ACORN would have no way to prove such forms had been flagged, and that letter could only be produced after charges had been filed and evidence could be submitted to a court.
Guilty until proven innocent? |
Michael T. Aupperle
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Auplvo11
Post Number: 39
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, May 9, 2009 - 8:04 pm: |
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The GOP's ACORN 'Voter Fraud' Scam Continues
(How else are they gonna be able to 'win' elections at this point?)
Posted By Brad Friedman On 9th May 2009 @ 16:35 In Pennsylvania, RNC, Republicans, ACORN | 2 Comments
Can't tell you how sick I am of the GOP's ACORN nonsense, having long ago exhausted myself in debunking the entire GOP scam [1] to try and use the group as a stalking horse to support their own insidious efforts at imposing polling place Photo ID restrictions in hopes of doing nothing more than keeping 20 to 30 million legal, largely Democratic-leaning voters from being able to cast their legal vote, because they don't own the type of ID that would be required to vote under these draconian, unnecessary, Jim Crow disenfranchisement laws.
But, as a quick perusal of recent 'Daily Voting News' articles [2] will show, efforts are still being doubled, and redoubled, by the GOP in state legislatures across the country in hopes of passing such restrictions into law. It seems these laws, meant to combat non-existent "voter fraud", are the Republicans' last, best hope to be able to actually "win" elections at all these days.
So, with all of that in mind...here's the latest AP report [3] on charges filed against ACORN workers in PA on Thursday, for falsifying voter registration forms.
As I replied to the person who sent me the link, please note in the poorly reported story: "There's no evidence anybody voted illegally or was denied a vote because of the scam".
Further, "the scam" was carried out by workers, in violation of ACORN's policies (akin to workers at Wal-Mart stealing items off the shelf --- you'd hardly charge Wal-Mart with "theft" in that incident), and was discovered, in no small part, because ACORN themselves alerted authorities to "the scam", and cooperated with law enforcement in helping to bring charges against the fraudsters. Of course, that hasn't stopped Fox "News" from "reporting" the story as if ACORN themselves (versus their workers) had been charged.
ACORN workers "registered some 38,000 new voters in southwestern Pennsylvania...last year", according to the AP article. The charges now filed against 6 state workers (out of the group's 13,000 employees nationwide) involve 51 registration cards suspected of having been forged by the workers. And, again: "There's no evidence anybody voted illegally or was denied a vote because of the scam."
The ACORN thing is indeed a "scam", but not the one that the AP report --- and the GOP and Fox "News" opportunists hoping to use it to disenfranchise voters --- paint it as.
Readers of The BRAD BLOG [4] likely already know all of the above. And so it bores me no end to have to keep pointing it out and re-reporting the same idiocy over and over again. But as the democracy-haters haven't given up on their insidious nonsense, I guess I have little choice but to keep pointing it out from time to time.
As long promised, The BRAD BLOG [5] has covered your electoral system fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation [6] to help us keep going. If you like, we'll send you some great, award-winning election integrity documentary films in return! Details on that right here... [7]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article printed from The BRAD BLOG: http://www.bradblog.com
URL to article: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7132
URLs in this post:
[1] debunking the entire GOP scam: http://www.bradblog.com/?page_id=6500
[2] recent 'Daily Voting News' articles: http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=9
[3] latest AP report: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090507/ap_on_re_us/us_voter_registration_probe_3;_y
lt=A0oGktnFxwNKqUwAsh51CqMX;_ylu=X3oDMTBxMmNlbTdlBHBndANhdl9uZXdzX3Jlc3VsdHMEc2V jA3Ny
[4] The BRAD BLOG: http://www.bradblog.com
[5] The BRAD BLOG: http://www.BradBlog.com
[6] a donation: http://www.bradblog.comhttps://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=Brad@BradBlog.com&
#038;item_name=Support+for+The+BRAD+BLOG&item_number=2008
[7] Details on that right here...: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6662 |
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 408
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, May 9, 2009 - 11:21 pm: |
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Well, I knew that reporting crimes to the proper authorities was the right thing to do, but a friend just pointed me to this Wikipedia link (which may not be accurate):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_(legal_term)
Apparently somebody with knowledge of a crime who simply fails to report it to the proper authorities, becomes an accessory after the fact, that is, an accessory to the crime.
So reporting knowledge of a crime to the proper authorities isn't just the ethical thing to do, it is actually criminal NOT to do it. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10519
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 11, 2009 - 9:10 am: |
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Mark, the information you cite "in nearly every case" ACORN flagged its own bad registrations is from the ACORN Web site.
We know that ACORN has submitted bogus registration forms. At issue is whether ACORN itself flagged them every time, or not, and how many have been submitted. For those answers, we need information sourced from government records rather than from the ACORN Web site. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10520
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 11, 2009 - 9:13 am: |
|
Carrying over a comment from a similar thread elsewhere, the wikipedia entry you cite does not indicate that failure to report a crime to the authorities makes a person an accessory. I do think we all have a responsibility to report information if we believe we have evidence of a crime. However, as I posted in the other thread, even when evidence DOES exist, as in the case of the Bullitt County sheriff attending a meeting with hand written notes describing a break-in and tampering incident at the voting machine storage facility, we were told he had not filed a report on it and that nothing in the law requires him to do so. Only after citizens asked for the report in public records did he file the report. |
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 410
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 11, 2009 - 6:50 pm: |
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Bev writes: "We know that ACORN has submitted bogus registration forms."
We also know that the Democratic Party has submitted bogus registration forms.
We also know that the Republican Party has submitted bogus registration forms.
We also know that the Libertarian, Green, and any other Party you want to name has submitted bogus registration forms.
That's because sometimes people will fill out a registration form when somebody asks them to, but don't actually want to register to vote, so they'll put down incorrect information. That happens to every organization that gathers voter registrations. And because they cannot simply destroy those forms, but are required to submit them along with valid forms, and they are not allowed to deface the forms, no matter how bogus, by marking them VOID or NOT VALID, all they can do is put them in a separate package.
I specifically said that the Wikipedia entry on accessory to a crime might not be fully accurate because it is a Wikipedia entry, but even so, it does say that a person may be considered an accessory to a crime for withholding information regarding a crime from the proper authorities, which I suppose would depend on local laws and how corrupt the authorities are.
As for needing "....information sourced from government records rather than from the ACORN Web site," would you accept information sourced from government records over information from this website? I stated that the information was from the ACORN website and should be judged accordingly, and I would assume that people here who are knowledgeable with regard to government corruption, would judge government sourced information accordingly.
But back to your phrase in the first paragraph of this thread, "....by creating bogus registration forms like ACORN?"
Do you have any source for the allegation that ACORN (rather than registration gatherers trying to cheat ACORN out of money) created bogus registrations?
The only source that I know of was Kurt's statement that he had seen bogus registrations submitted by ACORN (not created by ACORN) and a training manual that he described as teaching people how to create bogus registrations. However he apparently did not turn this evidence over to the proper authorities, so even if the evidence actually existed, he made it impossible for the proper authorities to be aware of it and prosecute ACORN. Since I can't figure out why Kurt would have withheld evidence of a crime from the proper authorities, the whole thing puzzles me, particularly since Kurt has made no bones about the fact that he wants to see ACORN prosecuted.
If Kurt is the only source for your allegation that ACORN created bogus registrations, I think you may be in need of better sourcing, as apparently the only evidence that ever existed to that effect was seen only by Kurt and his boss and neither of them chose to turn it over to the proper authorities. With as much time, money, and manpower as the FBI has devoted to investigating ACORN nationwide over the course of several years, I think if such a manual existed, they would have found at least some reference to it or somebody who could attest to it. They are still actively seeking such information in connection with ongoing investigations and prosecutions, and if you or Kurt have any such information, whether or not withholding it would make you an accessory to a crime, I think you should turn it over to them just because, as you said, that is our responsibility as citizens.
And if no such evidence exists, then it might not be a great idea to make unfounded allegations. |
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 412
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 11, 2009 - 8:11 pm: |
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I apologize for posting my comment above before I saw Kurt's post in the other discussion thread here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/156/80362.html
Apparently, although I may have misunderstood him and have this all wrong, the reason that Kurt didn't go to the proper authorities at the time was because he feared being fired and subjected to retaliation. That doesn't explain why he is still withholding that information from an active FBI investigation, as he has already been fired.
Thinking about what Joel posted above, I suppose the FBI has COINTELPRO agents spreading disinformation smear campaigns against targeted organizations all the time, for the very reason that actual evidence against such organizations does not exist. But it would be silly to expect a COINTELPRO agent working for the FBI, who had FBI authorization for a smear campaign, to go to the FBI with "evidence" the the FBI had authorized the agent to fabricate. Man, this stuff really gets deep, and piled higher and higher. ROFL But seriously, it would be very unlike the FBI to spend years investigating an organization without attempting to fabricate SOME evidence against them, if for no other reason than to try to justify all the money spent. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 2952
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 10:07 am: |
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Mark,
Do you seriously believe that all of these people who supposedly "scammed" ACORN just randomly managed to stumble upon the exact same techniques to evade duplicate detection in multiple cities and multiple states?
Have you not seen the YouTube video of the man in Ohio who admitted to filling out 4 voter registration forms in a single day, at two different addresses? Now is that ACORN's direct fault? No, assuming he was contacted by 4 different ACORN operatives, it's not. But it speaks to this idea of ACORN "quality control", and it ALSO speaks to why volume incentives and volume requirements are illegal in many states - they breed bad registrations. If they were doing "quality control", how do they submit 4 forms for the same man, each filled out on the same day?
In 2004, I saw NO forms (granted I did not get to see a large percentage of the forms submitted - the staff tending to bring me "problems") where ultimately incorrect information was being corrected, but I saw PLENTY of forms where ultimately CORRECT information was crossed out and substituted with ALTERED information.
And the Berks County, PA (in 2004) ACORN "manager" (actually imported from Brooklyn, NY) admitted in an open session meeting of the Berks County Board of Elections, in October 2004, that it was "commonplace" for them to change information on VRMA forms after the registrant had signed the forms. I don't know what the law is in New York, but THAT IS A CRIMINAL ALTERATION OF A LEGAL AFFIDAVIT (which VRMA forms are in Pennsylvania) after it has been signed. Now if New York law is materially different in that, then there is arguably a mens rea problem in prosecuting. But it speaks to why voter registration needs to have a STATE focus, rather than allowing operatives to cross state lines willy nilly. It also means that this fellow is not subject to a Pennsylvania subpoena and these are STATE crimes. I'm not even sure why the FBI would be involved.
Technically, if you look at Pennsylvania statute in 2004, there was no provision for "third party" (as opposed to in-person or by mail) registration of voters at all! It simply was not one of the methods to become registered listed in statute, so there were no rules regarding how specifically to do it. BUT, and this is key, generically, altering someone's legal affidavit after they sign it is a crime per se, which the ACORN "manager" admitted was "commonplace" practice in Pennsylvania in 2004.
That is "game, set, match" in my book. If a group is going to operate in Pennsylvania, it has an obligation to be aware of, and operate under, Pennsylvania law. ACORN and its people couldn't have given a darn less. They literally stated at that same meeting in October 2004, "we don't pay attention to state laws, we're national." Great to know they have such legal scholars.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 414
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 1:08 pm: |
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Kurt in the other thread you wrote:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/156/80362.html?1242157962
"ACORN intentionally has their amateur registrars alter one or two digits in numeric fields, such as "last 4 SS#", or DOB, or street address house number and/or alpha fields such as swapping the order or selection of hyphenated names used, or altering spelling, in minor ways so as to evade detection as duplicates. This was in their manuals. It is a TRAINING TECHNIQUE!!!
That IN AND OF ITSELF is criminal. THAT is far MORE OFTEN the so-called "quality control" that ACORN engages in. How do I know this? I saw it and REPORTED IT TO MY THEN BOSSES, who IGNORED IT out of political pressure or expediency."
Are you now saying that you never saw such a training manual and merely inferred that such training manuals must have existed from the way in which registrations were altered?
I sincerely apologize if I misinterpreted your unfounded allegations, "ACORN intentionally has their amateur registrars alter one or two digits in numeric fields...." and, "This was in their manuals," followed only a few sentences later by, "How do I know this? I saw it and REPORTED IT...." to mean that you had actually seen such a training manual or had knowledge of the existence of such a training manual, when all you meant was that you had simply inferred the existence of such training manuals from the ways in which bogus registrations were altered.
I also apologize for accusing you of withholding information from the FBI. If such information existed, I'm sure you would have taken it to the FBI by now, but you obviously can't go to them with an unfounded allegation attributing motivation to ACORN, no matter how logical your reasoning. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 2955
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 1:56 pm: |
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Mark,
I saw the forms, with the altered data, from MULTIPLE ACORN "employees" in 2004. Another admitted in their trial in Berks County court, under oath, in 2006 (after I was no longer there) that instructions to do this were included in their training manuals. This is in the transcript of the case. I have no reason to doubt this. I do know, of my own knowledge, that such training manuals do exist. I've seen them externally. One was waved in my face in 2004. But I have not read one, no.
So I am surmising from several facts.
1) ACORN manuals exist.
2) The identical alterations were made by numerous ACORN operatives in 2004.
3) There was a trial of an ACORN operative in 2006 tried for this who claimed they were trained by ACORN to do this.
It's a pretty stout QED for me. Your mileage may differ.
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Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10539
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 3:06 pm: |
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Mark, drop accusing people of some sort of malfeasance for not reporting things to the FBI. I've reported plenty to the FBI (which has sometimes resulted in successful investigations and sometimes resulted in diddly); it's always a judgement call as to whether a person has their hands on the kind of evidence that can lead to a conviction or not. If we ran to the FBI every time we made a comment about things we have witnessed, we might as well buy lawn chairs and camp out on the sidewalk outside their office.
Seriously. Get on the front lines and actually DO something, as Kurt has and as we do at Black Box Voting, instead of just pontificating.
I see that you separate ACORN employees from ACORN management. News flash: Anyone in management knows that pay-per-reg, or pay-per-lead, or any other pay-per scheme results in bogus information unless you set up ironclad MANAGEMENT procedures. ACORN did not set those up. Therefore, yes, ACORN is responsible for its own mess. |
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 416
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - 1:51 am: |
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Lots of people lie under oath, Kurt. Oliver North did. "Just following orders," is a time-honored alibi for everyone from Nazis to torturers. But since the FBI has been investigating ACORN for a long time, if there was court testimony about such manuals, I think they would have pursued it. I'd guess that they managed to get hold of the manuals and could find nothing incriminating in them. Since you never saw what was in the manuals, you are just inferring what was in them.
Do you have a link to the transcript of that trial? If there was testimony about a training manual and the prosecuting attorneys made no demand to have the manuals introduced into evidence, they were incompetent.
Bev, if ACORN was lax or negligent, that is quite different from them deliberately training employees to falsify voter registrations. The two allegations are not the same and one is much more serious than the other.
Apparently, despite Kurt's claim to the contrary, there has been no dearth or scarcity of investigations into and prosecutions of ACORN.
1) ACORN manuals exist.
2) Kurt alleges that identical alterations were made by numerous independent contractors gathering signatures for ACORN in 2004. Kurt saw this and reported it to his superiors, but for whatever reason, possibly because they had seen identical alterations made by signature gatherers for the two major political parties, they did nothing.
3) In 2006 here was a trial of an independent contractor who gathered signatures for ACORN who claimed they were trained by ACORN to do this.
4) Either no attempt was made to verify that claim, in which case the prosecutors were wasting taxpayer money because they were incompetent and never actually wanted to get at the facts, or the manuals were obtained and found to contain nothing incriminating.
Kurt, I believe that you were the one who corrected me and said that people gathering signatures for ACORN were independent contractors rather than employees. "Operatives" would be more appropriate to describe the people responsible for FBI-style disinformation, COINTELPRO, and smear campaigns, or paid political party agents who do the same type of things.
At any rate, Bev, if somebody on this board is obviously partisan, does that mean that Black Box Voting is partisan? Any organization concerned with maintaining a non-partisan tax status or reputation, would set up ironclad rules and procedures to ensure that status or reputation was maintained. So any failure to do so, by your reasoning, would be the responsibility of the organization. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 2327
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 18, 2009 - 8:55 am: |
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Mark, and Kurt, you're both making assumptions without proof. |
Samuel Scharff
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Abacus
Post Number: 141
Registered: 8-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 18, 2009 - 10:20 pm: |
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Can I say: this seems a notably sensible discussion?
Abacus
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10557
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 - 9:55 am: |
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Mark,
Yes, Black Box Voting has rules regarding nonpartisanship. We enforce them. That does not mean we eliminate comments from any member with a political point of view; rather, we provide a forum for intelligent discussion of all points of view. |
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 421
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 21, 2009 - 1:34 pm: |
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That's a "notably sensible" policy, Bev.
It makes me wonder about the difference between PA not requiring that all registrations including bogus ones be submitted to elections officials, and other states that require that all registrations be submitted (with the bogus ones flagged).
If ACORN is a partisan organization, as Kurt seems to imply, then why couldn't they simply discard registrations from people who didn't share their views, claiming they were bogus? (My impression is that they are an issue-oriented organization and would be grateful for support for their issues no matter what political party it came from.) I suspect there might be good reason for requiring that all registrations be turned in so that the elections officials can sift through them and pick any bogus registrations out of the "submitted as valid" pile, and pick any valid registrations out of the "flagged as bogus" pile.
Many partisan groups gather registrations and I'm not sure they'd be the best ones to decide which ones are valid and which aren't.
Of course since elections officials are often partisan themselves, I'm not sure that elections officials are the best ones to do this either.
As with everything else in an electoral process, I believe that this should also be subject to public oversight, and that the more public oversight there is, the better chance of getting things right. |
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