Patriots and activists from 23 states are about to gather together on March 25 and 26 in Houston, Texas to attend the True The Vote Summit, an effort to make “true” the electoral system in every polling place in the country, to stop voter fraud, and to quash the intimidation of voters. Organizers hope to make sure that we again have free and fair elections.

A local Harris County activist group named The The King Street Patriots built the True The Vote Summit upon their experiences of attempting to “true” the 2010 election in Harris County, Texas.

Back before the recent election, the KSP got together to try and find out what sort of shape the voting rolls were in Harris County, Texas were. What they found was shocking. Due to its investigation, an ACORN organizer was exposed for having registered over 23,000 fake voters in the county. The story made national news.

With that success under their belts the KSPers and their chief Catherine Engelbrecht decided to step it up a notch. And so, during the 2010 midterm election, the group set out to organize citizen poll watchers to monitor every polling place in Harris County. The goal was to make sure that what went on in each polling place followed the letter of the law, was free of cheating and fraud, and was open and welcoming for every voter.

Naturally the floodgates of hate were opened upon them. Leftist agitators let loose a smear campaign against these patriotic folks calling them haters, racists, and worse. The Black Panthers even came out in force to intimidate both the KSP and the voters they were observing.

The attacks on the True The Vote Summit have also continued unabated by the left today. So we know how the left is worried about this movement. Vote fraud is almost exclusively practiced by Democrats and left-wing activists in this country, so an effort like this threatens their operations.

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Big Government has obtained an advance copy of Homeland Security’s Inspector General report detailing ACORN’s misuse of a federal grant from FEMA.  The report will be released to the public on December 8th. We’ve included it below.

EMBARGOED 12-8-10 DHS IG Report – ACORN Grants

Contacted by Big Government about the report, incoming Chair of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Rep. Darrell Issa, had this comment:

It is really unthinkable that anyone would use the guise of public safety and helping victims of a tragedy like Hurricane Katrina as a calculating way to inappropriately obtain taxpayer dollars.  As the discussion over how to reign in government’s growth and spending moves forward, there couldn’t be a more important time to ensure that the grants awarded with taxpayer dollars meet rigorous criteria and are subject to vigilant oversight to ensure that grant recipients are not given access to taxpayer dollars under false pretenses.”

The key things in the DHS IG’s report were:

• “We concluded that the ACORN Institute should not have received these funds, did not fully implement and evaluate the program as approved, and could not substantiate all its grant expenditures.
• “The FEMA did not have sufficient oversight processes to prevent the award or to fully evaluate the use of the grant money.”
• The Technical Evaluation Panel that reviewed ACORN’s grant request recommended it not be funded but “FEMA overrode the panels’ recommendation and awarded the grant without documenting how it addressed the Technical Evaluation Panel’s concerns.”
• ACORN described an Urban Fire Initiative that did not actually exist until they requested the funding:  “the Urban Fire Initiative did not exist prior to the grant application, but was created specifically for activities funded by the FY 2007 Fire Prevention and Safety Grant.  Neither ACORN Institute nor the Urban Fire Initiative was involved in any of the above activities and events.”
• ACORN claimed partnerships with local fire departments but “there was no evidence of these partnerships were in place…”
• FEMA relied on “self certification” and “has no requirement or standard procedure in the evaluation process of the Fire Prevention and Safety grant applications to validate the legitimacy of significant claims and assertions used to qualify an applicant for the grant…”

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From the Associated Press:

A government audit says the advocacy group ACORN should reimburse the government $3.2 million for failing to adequately show that lead removal work was performed at a reasonable cost.

The auditors also say some grant money was spent inappropriately, including for political campaigns and fundraising.

Congress already has cut off ACORN’s federal funding after allegations of voter registration fraud and embezzlement.

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Contrary to popular perception, the criminal group ACORN (Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now) is not quite a’moulderin’ in the grave, folks. Many might recall that Congress turned off the spigot of federal funds flowing into the coffers of the organization responsible for federal election law crimes all across the country. Many might all recall that ACORN itself eventually said it would shutter its operations.

But even with all that recent history, ACORN’s Project Vote is still in operation and one of its main directors is a woman under a cloud of criminal charges in the state of Nevada.

Project Vote is supposed to be separate from ACORN, at least on paper. But as Matthew Vadum writes, “Although legally separate entities, in practice the two are the same, as the congressional testimony of former ACORN/Project Vote employee Anita MonCrief can attest. They share office space, employees, and budgets. Project Vote continues to operate out of ACORN’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.”

Vadum also reports that the ramrod that heads up Project Vote is one Amy Busefink. Busefink is an ACORN employee under indictment for violating election laws in Nevada.

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From Election Law Center blog:

A few days ago we blogged how the Houston voter registrar had a press conference announcing widespread voter fraud and thousands of illegal and phony voter registrations submitted by an ACORN-like organization called “Houston Votes.” Those stories are here and here.

Harris County Tax Assessor Collector [and voter registrar] Leo Vasquez accused the group of submitting thousands of bogus voter registration applications in recent months in what he said appears to be a campaign to taint the voter rolls.

Well this morning Mr. Vasquez’s warehouse containing all of the voting machines, supplies and equipment burned to the ground.

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ACORN whistle-blower Anita Moncrief held a press conference Friday at the Right Online Convention in Las Vegas. She announced today that she will press FEC charges against the Obama Administration for the campaign’s illegal coordination with ACORN during the 2008 election.

Anita also rolled out her new website Emerging Corruption. The website will focus on fraud and corruption in ACORN and affiliated groups.

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“ACORN HQ is wkg [working] for the Democratic Party,” so say the newly released FBI records.  The handwritten notes provide a laundry list of underhanded activities related to elections in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2007.

The documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by Judicial Watch, a conservative government watchdog group in Washington, DC, concern the arrests of eight workers from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, aka ACORN, for violations of election laws and voter fraud in Missouri.

ACORN is a collection of “community organizations” purportedly promoting various social issues relevant to low-income families, and large-scale voter registration drives have been a significant aspect of that outreach since the 1980s. During the 2006 mid-term elections there were numerous reports of voter fraud on the part of ACORN’s canvassers, which led to investigations in numerous states. The 2006 federal investigation of the allegations in Missouri led to several convictions, but after a similar investigation in Connecticut was halted by the Obama Justice Department in 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the documents produced by the earlier investigation.

The result was a collection of FBI documents which included copies of arrest warrants and court documents and over one hundred pages of handwritten notes from the FBI investigators regarding the ACORN employees’ attitudes and actions.

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A federal court of appeals overturned Clinton-appointee Judge Nina Gershon’s ruling that claimed the government had the right and responsibility to fund ACORN.

Thank God, in light of the latest antics from ACORN Chief Organizer Berth Lewis.  While applauding the Young Democratic Socialists, she said, “Any group that says, ‘I’m young, I’m Democratic, and I’m a socialist,’ is all right with me.”

I’m glad the real socialists, with the ear of our government, are finally standing up to be counted.

The Tea Parties, which Lewis called a “bowel movement,” are bringing America into a phase that will surpass Jim Crow, McCarthism and the Japanese internment camps of World War II.

This woman, who has overseen an organization and employees accused and/or convicted of voter registration fraud in well over a dozen states, has no shame.

Lewis’ actions, both past and present, show why her organization isn’t worthy of our hard-earned tax dollars.

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From Daniel Bice, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Milwaukee police officers sat on their hands for months last year instead of investigating possible voter fraud cases from the 2008 general election.

It’s an incredible claim, but it’s coming from a credible source:

Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf, the Milwaukee County prosecutor responsible for overseeing campaign and election issues.

“Honestly, the Milwaukee Police Department largely ignored your double voter (and other) referrals received in January 2009 for the first six months of 2009,” Landgraf wrote in an e-mail to a city elections official on Jan. 26.

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From The Hill:

ACORN and its affiliates received $200,000 in Justice Department grants between 2002 and 2009, according a report issued today by the department’s Inspector General.

No DOJ grants went directly to ACORN, but a handful of grants were awarded either to ACORN affiliates or to other organizations that sub-contracted with ACORN.

The report, requested by House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), also found a few instances of ACORN mismanagement of federally contracted work.

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Media Matters continues to try to provide cover for the public flogging ACORN has received as a result of investigative videos which showed ACORN employees giving advice on a number of illegal activities including human trafficking, child prostitution, bank fraud, illegal immigration and tax evasion. Meanwhile, the mainstream media has largely ignored a growing scandal that cannot be contained: ACORN is reportedly closing offices across the country, including the site of the DC undercover videotape.

Also, today another damning ACORN tape was released at Big Government. This time an ACORN member openly confessed to ACORN using non-partisan voter registration to secretly produce Obama votes.

Anyone paying attention knows accusations relating to voter registration fraud, illicit partisan activity and other chicanery often have been made against ACORN, with ACORN either denying all or any ACORN fault. In October of 2008, I testified in Pennsylvania regarding the illegal coordination between Barack Obama’s Campaign and ACORN:

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A new citizen action group is committed to exposing the danger that ACORN and the Working Family Party poses to our democracy based on their record of subverting elections through voter fraud, falsifying petitions and engaging in absentee ballot fraud for favored candidacies, looting government housing programs, blackmailing corporations and cheating the public campaign finance system.

Nutbusterz will serve serve as a clearinghouse for media coverage of the illegal activities of ACORN. Media reports on ACORN and the New York Working Families Party (WFP) will be updated daily. Candidates and causes that ally themselves with ACORN will be exposed and held to account.

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Last week was both good and bad for the leftist “activism for profit and power” leadership of ACORN. Their tentacles will finally reach New York City Hall – and the Pension funds of New York City ,when the Democratic nominees for Public Advocate and City Comptroller, both of whom owe their nomination to the ACORN front- the New York Working Families Party, are elected this November. At the same time  a scandal started to unravel in a upstate New York county where, for the first time, ACORN is under the scrutiny of a District Attorney who is not a Democrat cross-endorsed by the WFP.

Make no mistake about it , the so called Working Families Party, a party with no county chairmen or county committees, and no unpaid workers, is merely a front for ACORN. They share the same office and addresses. ACORN Executive Director Bertha Lewis is the Co-Chair and de-facto boss of the well heeled little “party”. Labor pours in millions to leverage the Democratic Party to the Left….on their issues. With New York deeply in the hole and with state revenue dropping sharply, there is no discussion of cutting the state’s bloated labor costs.
 
The WFP, controlled by  ACORN, has no shortage of cash, indeed the party’s founder embezzeled $1 Million dollars but the ACORN elected not to prosecute him for fear of a court laying bare their financial books and records. 

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