By Antonio D. French
Filed Friday, December 21, 2007 at 2:59 PM
The following press release is from the St. Louis City Election Board in response to today's indictment of eight former ACORN workers on charges of voter registration fraud: Labels: Crime, Election_BoardEarlier today, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of the State of Missouri, Catherine L. Hanaway, announced that eight former employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, were indicted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on federal election violations. The indictments come approximately thirteen months after the City of St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners turned over to federal investigators, thousands of voter registration cards that had been submitted for processing to the Board by ACORN.
These voter registration cards contained fraudulent signatures, improper and inaccurate voter information, and duplicative and incorrect names. Included in the voter registration cards that were patently fraudulent was a voter registration card and signature attributed to a fifteen year old girl whose mother alerted the Board that no such card and signature had been completed.
"These voter registration cards were brazenly fraudulent, and we are pleased that the U.S. Attorney’s Office is taking steps to properly prosecute those who commit voter registration fraud," stated Republican Director Scott Leiendecker.
"The Board will continue to vigorously investigate any and all allegations of election fraud and refer any incidents to the appropriate law enforcement authorities."
Here's our video report from October 2006:
UPDATE: More on the indictments from the U.S. Attorney's Office:Eight voter registration workers, employed by The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), have been indicted on election fraud charges in connection with the November 2006 general election, United States Attorney Catherine L. Hanaway announced today.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (“ACORN”) is a not-for-profit organization and during 2006 maintained and operated an office at 4304 Manchester Avenue in the City of St. Louis, in part to conduct a voter registration drive for the November 7, 2006 general election.
Project Vote is a not-for-profit organization that works with ACORN to register voters for federal and local elections. Project Vote funded ACORN in the 2006 voter registration drive.
“The allegations of Election Fraud announced today represent criminal activities which undermine the public’s confidence in government. This type of criminal activity should not be tolerated by citizens of the community,” said Hanaway. “We intend to investigate vigorously, and prosecute fully, any allegations of fraud in our election system.”
ACORN and Project Vote recruited and employed workers to obtain voter registrations in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County during 2006. The workers were trained and instructed by ACORN and Project Vote on how to obtain voter registrations and how to prepare voter registration applications, which included training and instruction that the actual voter must sign the voter application and that a forged signature is a violation of the law.
The indictment alleges that from July through October 2006, the eight defendants indicted today were employed by ACORN as voter registration workers to obtain voter registrations in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County. They are charged with multiple counts of election fraud for submitting false voter registration applications to the St. Louis City and St. Louis County Board of Election Commissions falsely stating addresses, names and other information of the voters being registered, and which contained forged signatures of the purported applicants, in violation of Title 42, United States Code, Sections 1973i(c) and 1973 gg-10, election fraud.
The indicted individuals are:
If convicted, each count of 42 U.S.C. Section 1973i(c) carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and/or fines up to $ 10,000. Each count of 42 U.S.C. Section 1973gg-10 carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and/or fines up to $250,000.
In discussions with the United States Attorney’s Office, ACORN has agreed to implement a plan to improve voter registration and quality control procedures. ACORN is planning to strengthen the system it has to monitor and address performance problems, and has agreed to meet with prosecutors to discuss how best to report possible illegal activity. ACORN has agreed that comprehensive training will be required of all quality control and management staff. ACORN has agreed to the creation of a General Counsel position to monitor ACORN programs, and who will communicate with local election officials to address problems. Further, ACORN has agreed to assign a 13-year ACORN veteran and Missouri Head Organizer to St. Louis full time to personally oversee any future voter registration drive.
“The FBI is committed to investigating all instances of election fraud to ensure the integrity of our democratic system,” said John Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, FBI, St. Louis.
Hanaway acknowledged the assistance of the St. Louis and St. Louis County Election Boards and commended the work performed on the case by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Postal Inspection Service and Assistant United States Attorney Hal Goldsmith, who is handling the case for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The charges set forth in an indictment are merely accusations, and each defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
7 Comments:
In addition, this Board respects, welcomes, and appreciates the efforts by all concerned citizens and interest groups to conduct voter registration drives to ensure that all qualified individuals are secure in the utmost right, the right to vote. However, sloppy and careless efforts to register voters, coupled with ineffective oversight of agents, can lead to bloated voter registration rolls and the abuses detailed above. Moreover, the malfeasant who consciously conducts registration fraud hoists a number of irreversible problems upon the community. Registration fraud, as a whole, affects communities more deeply than the traditional idea of polling place fraud, which carries with it the antiquated vision of a perpetrator physically stuffing a ballot box full of a handful of fraudulent ballots in an attempt to sway one race in one election. Registration fraud results in skewed statistics, wasted taxpayer dollars, wasted effort on the part of civically minded individuals, and voter disenfranchisement over a term of many years. Utilizing creativity and technological advances as the Board has done and passing laws to give teeth to election related offenses should deter malfeasants from such fraud, or at least make such fraud more easily detectable.
When registration fraud occurs, everyone suffers. Every bad registration is a potential bad vote that, in effect, cancels the vote of an honest voter.
12/22/2007 9:27 AM
"'The FBI is committed to investigating all instances of election fraud to ensure the integrity of our democratic system,' said John Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, FBI, St. Louis. "
-Why hasn't the FBI done anything about the voter fraud that occurred in Florida in 2000 or in Ohio in 2004? Why are these individuals facing up to five years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines when big-money power players have gotten away with fraud that allowed George W. Bush and his cronies to steal two elections, start and continue an illegal war, and implement policies that are destroying our country?
And do I need to even discuss Diebold?
Our government needs to start focusing on its own fraudulent actions and stop prosecuting the "little man."
12/22/2007 4:28 PM
Antonio,please use your investigative journalistic skills to find out why Tyaira L. Williams nickname is "Tootsie Roll"!
12/22/2007 8:40 PM
John Q. Public asks this Question of the U.S. Attorney's Office-
How many police officers are being tried for the missing $40,000.00 or more from Police Property Rooms ?
12/23/2007 12:17 PM
John Q,that sure is a long "investigation" isn't it? You would think with all the investigators and Internal Affairs people that the police would of gotten to the bottom of the thefts by now! Doesn't give you much confidence in Mokwa,does it? You would think the police would have better controls and accountability procedures to maintain the security and integrity of the evidence room!
12/23/2007 10:37 PM
The board of Election is not currently able to serve the city of St. Louis. Look at the web site and the realization that it, under Scott Leiendecker has failed to provide an up to date record of the election process. His records are the problem, he has a list of inactive voters that are kept on file to prevent accurate information form reaching the public. What are his efforts currently underway to register people in the city for future elections and remove phantom voters from the current list?
He and fellow members of the Election board have no answer.
12/25/2007 9:23 AM
will this new indictment affect their probation?
12/26/2007 6:51 PM
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