ACORN Turns In 2,500 Fraudulent Voter Registrations In Lake County REGISTERED A MR. JOHNS JIMMY LIVING AT A JIMMY JOHN'S SANDWICH SHOP
It is absolutely unbelievable that ACORN, the supposed nonprofit group which operates as an extension of Obama's presidential campaign, is permitted to register votes anywhere in the U.S. The Sun-Times reports that the group has turned in as many as
2,500 fraudulent voter registrations in Lake County, Indiana alone over the past two weeks. Abdon Pallasch writes:
As many as 21,000 Hoosiers turned out in the rain Wednesday to cheer on Barack Obama at the state fairgrounds.
But in Lake County, Ind., a nonprofit group Obama once represented as a lawyer, ACORN, filed an estimated 2,500 fraudulent voter registrations in the past two weeks, county election officials say.
Indianapolis and Gary gave Obama his highest vote totals in the Indiana primary, along with college towns such as South Bend and Bloomington.
Lake County, as in other parts of the country, Obama backers say they have signed up thousands of voters inspired by Obama. ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has participated in many of those registration drives. Some Republicans have charged that ACORN members engage in vote fraud. In Las Vegas, federal officials raided ACORN's offices Tuesday as part of a vote-fraud investigation.
Here's the part of the story I like. ACORN registered a "Mr. Johns Jimmy" at the address of a Jimmy John's in Crown Point:
In Lake County, 18,000 new voters have registered in the last two weeks, about 5,000 of them signed up by ACORN, said Ruthann Hoagland, of the county's board of elections. As they started making verification calls on the ACORN registrations, employees found about half were false, she said. One was for a Mr. Johns Jimmy at the address of a Jimmy John's sandwich shop in Crown Point. Some registrants were dead.
Hoagland said one ACORN official told her that the employees who filed the fraudulent registrations have been fired. ACORN officials could not be reached for comment. Republican officials have taken the issue to federal court.
The story notes Obama's long-standing ties with the group:
Obama successfully represented ACORN in Chicago in its effort to protect the law that allows people to register to vote when they get their driver's licenses. Obama's campaign had no comment on ACORN's current difficulties.