Project Vote appears to be directing DOJ resources toward particular states; is having meetings with DOJ staff; and is even recommending lawyers to work in the Justice Department Voting Section that will oversee the 2012 presidential election.

Project Vote also appears to have played a role in the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s administration, which aims to force the state to increase voter registration in welfare agencies and drug treatment offices.

The documents also appear to show that Project Vote receives special access to, and meetings with, DOJ officials. So do other voter fraud-deniers, such as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; Tova Wang at Demos; and the Brennan Center for Justice. I write about numerous similar instances in my book, Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department.

These activist groups have enjoyed access to the top political appointees at DOJ over voting–including Aaron McCree Lewis, in the Office of the Attorney General; Sam Hirsch, Deputy Associate Attorney General; and Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of voting issues, Matthew Colangelo.

Emails obtained by Judicial Watch also suggest that Project Vote was directing complaints to the persons at DOJ responsible for deploying election monitoring resources, urging them to devote resources to races around the country–particularly where Tea Party groups were active in efforts to combat voter fraud.

On February 23, 2010, Estelle Rogers, head of Project Vote and a former ACORN lawyer, also urged Voting Section Chief Chris Herren to hire two particular ACORN-approved attorneys to work in the Justice Department Voting Section. “Now that the application period has closed, I want to heartily recommend two candidates to you,” she wrote.

“Thanks very much Estelle,” Herren wrote back.

Eventually, the Voting Section in fact hired numerous lawyers from left-wing groups, such as those that were dedicated to aggressive enforcement of the welfare agency voter registration provisions of Motor Voter. The relevant emails obtained by Judicial Watch are redacted, so we don’t know if the individuals hired were the same ones suggested by Rogers. However, we do know that DOJ hired attorneys expert in Motor Voter–such as Bradley Heard and Elizabeth Westfall, who brought lawsuits while at the Advancement Project that stopped Colorado and Michigan from purging voter rolls of ineligible voters prior to the 2008 Presidential election.

But that isn’t the worst of it. Other documents suggest that a swarm of left-wing groups is meeting regularly with top DOJ election officials. The documents show these groups urging the DOJ to open investigations into particular people, states and events.

For example, Rogers met with Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes to discuss lawsuits under Section 7 of the Motor Voter law. Previously, Fernandes had announced her unwillingness to enforce portions of the same law designed to ensure dead voters or ineligible felons were not on the rolls. Former Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates testified under oath that he had recommended investigations into eight states with possibly corrupted voter rolls, but Fernandes and other Obama appointees had spiked the investigations.

Instead, the documents show pleasing Project Vote was a DOJ priority.

In an October 10, 2010 email, Rogers made clear that she wanted the DOJ to take action against then-Senate candidate Mark Kirk in Illinois  (Rogers incorrectly refers to him “Paul” Kirk). Rogers places the words “voter integrity” in quotes, as if fictional.  Herren respondes: “Hi Estelle….We are also receiving complaints from various sources. For all these, we are reviewing and taking action as appropriate. If you have any issues that come up that you want us to be aware of, please feel free to shoot us an email (to Brian [Heffernan], Bert and I) – that’s the easiest way to keep track of the many things coming in the door.”

The “many things” include complaints made by left-wing groups about voter integrity and Tea Party efforts.

The documents reveal how left-wing civil rights groups work against Republican or conservative candidates by attempting to leverage law enforcement against them. These groups have a cozy relationship with the Obama Justice Department, and know just who to call if they want something done against someone like Mark Kirk.

The documents that Project Vote sent to the DOJ also include allegations against a client of mine, True the Vote.  That might explain why the Justice Department took no action on a complaint that True the Vote sent DOJ in October 2010 documenting that self-professed non-citizens were registering to vote in Houston.  We even sent documents showing that applicants marked “no” to questions about whether they were US Citizens.

True the Vote didn’t get the kind responsive emails that Project Vote did.  They didn’t get special meetings with Voting Section staff and political appointees like Project Vote did.  They didn’t receive any telephone calls, requests for more documents, interview requests, nothing.  In fact, they didn’t get any response from Justice.  Of course the most obvious difference in how Justice treated Project Vote compared with True the Vote is that DOJ launched a series of enforcement efforts against Rhode Island and Louisiana, just like Project Vote wanted.  Against officials in Texas with the corrupted voter rolls, DOJ did nothing.

These emails are just the tip of the iceberg. The emails refer to other emails, not disclosed by DOJ, which involve employees not within the scope of the request.  When Judicial Watch expands the FOIA to cast a wider net, and more employees that are named in the emails, more evidence of the coordination between the ACORN affiliate and your Justice Department’s Voting Section is likely to be found.

Five Wisconsin residents have been charged with criminal counts of voter fraud in the November 2008 general election, state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced Monday.

Two of those charged – Maria Miles, 36, of Milwaukee, and Kevin Clancy, 26, of Racine – worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the embattled community organizing group.

“The complaint alleges that Miles and Clancy submitted multiple voter registration applications for the same individuals, and also were part of a scheme in which they and other (special registration deputies) registered each other to vote multiple times in order to meet voter registration quotas imposed by ACORN,” the Van Hollen news release says.

Both were charged with one felony count.

ACORN could not be reached for comment Monday.

Also charged were a couple – Herbert Gunka, 60, and Suzanne Gunka, 54, both of Milwaukee – for supposedly double voting in November 2008, once absentee and once at the polls.

Michael Henderson, 40, was charged with two felony counts of being a felon who cast a ballot even though he was still on probation. The Milwaukee man was convicted in 2005 in Rock County with two felonies for bail jumping and one disorderly conduct misdemeanor.

He was sentenced to five years’ probation.

A felony for voter fraud carries a maximum penalty of up to 3 1/2 years behind bars and a $10,000 fine. All five individuals are scheduled to appear in court on April 20.

The charges were brought as part of the Milwaukee Election Fraud Task Force.

Van Hollen’s announcement comes the same day that the Journal Sentinel disclosed that a Milwaukee County prosecutor was accusing Milwaukee police of failing to investigate these cases for the first half of last year.

Read the whole article here.

Project Vote has been causing mischief in the Midwest since before President Obama was their community organizer, but this last decade has seen an evolution in the number and sophistication of state cases.  We start in Michigan, where  The Secretary of State Project (SoSP) has endorsed progressive Jocelyn Benson for Michigan Secretary of State.  The following is how the endorsement should read:

“Progressive scholar and DNC organizer Jocelyn Benson is running for an open seat to replace Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, who prevented us from adding unsupervised provisional ballots to your elections.  In 2004, Benson ran a voter ‘protection’ campaign in 21 states for the DNC, deploying 17,000 starving lawyers at minimum wage to coerce low-income voters.  In Michigan in 2008, Benson helped lead the progressive fight to stop Secretary of State Land from cleaning the voter rolls.  We plan to sue the state of Michigan no matter who wins, but it will hurt less if she is elected.”

At least that is how I read their endorsement, but maybe I am getting ahead of myself.  Let us go back to June 16, 2004.

A directive issued by the Michigan Director of Elections established provisional ballots would not be counted for (1) first-time voters who register by mail and who cannot provide identification on election-day, and (2) voters who vote at the wrong polling place.  Provisional voting is required by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), and applies to an individual that does not appear on the official list of eligible voters for the precinct in which that individual wants to vote.  HAVA allows for “voter registration procedures established under applicable State law,” in regards to compliance.  In fact, much of HAVA allows for states to establish the procedures necessary to implement the policies.

Of course, we know that progressive contempt for state law and practice is only surpassed by progressive contempt for well-run elections.

That is why ACORN’s complaint was not filed with the federal district court until a little over a month before the 2004 elections, and then refiled ten days later.  The amended complaint reads like a law review article or an amicus brief filed before the Supreme Court.  Realizing that the violations alleged were not clear under the plain meaning of the law, ACORN’s attorneys quote the intent of the law from the likes of Senators Chuck Schumer (D) and Paul Wellstone (D), and the relevant statutory provisions are selectively quoted with ACORN’s interpretations.  The complaint utilizes the “shotgun approach” where every conceivable violation is alleged.  If we sift through all of the fluff, we can see that their claim, essentially, is that a provisional ballot should always count if the person allegedly voting is a real person.  The result is that ACORN can then transport as many people as it wants to any location, and as long as the individuals claim to be people actually registered to vote in Michigan, even without identification, their votes should count.

Read that again.  ACORN wanted provisional ballots to count prior to their certification as actual votes.  What this means in practice is that in close elections, a judge would have to explicitly go back through provisional ballots and toss them out.  That is significantly more difficult to agree to than allowing provisional ballots that have been verified to be added to vote totals.  Voter protection means you don’t get to cut votes – you only get to add to them.  And under ACORN’s reasoning, a provisional ballot should be a vote, nullifying the need to call it “provisional.”

On October 7, 2004, the Director of Elections agreed to revise the identification requirement so that individuals could present identification within a week after the election, though he did not budge over the polling place issue.  Despite ACORN’s attempt to catch Michigan officials off-guard, the state responded forcefully and thoroughly.  In one of the best defenses we’ve seen, Secretary of State Land even points out that her Director of Elections was involved with the drafting process of HAVA.  The relevant legal authorities, laws and cases on point, are identified immediately and concisely.  To counter the alleged intent of HAVA, according to ACORN, the state points out legislative history in opposition to the aforementioned senators.  The relevant statutory provisions are identified in full, rather than “cherry-picked” as in the complaint.  And to follow it up, Michigan cites the Tenth Amendment; HAVA only applies to federal election regulation, since the states still have the authority to regulate their own elections under the Constitution.  Basically, ACORN was claiming HAVA pre-empted state law, despite the fact that HAVA requires states to establish their own procedures for implementing parts of the act.

Judge David M. Lawson disagreed with Michigan.  He claims that sensible election laws “ought to focus on two goals: maximizing the participation of eligible voters and eliminating fraud.”  While we can certainly agree that the latter principle is compelling, the former is perplexing.  Why do we need laws encouraging those already registered to vote, to actually vote?  Should we go further and offer everyone a beer coupon if they vote?  That worked in the state of Missouri, until they got caught.  Lawson points to a Constitutional provision (Article I § 4) allowing states to establish time, place and manner of elections for federal office, while reserving Congressional authority to alter those procedures, but he does not address the issue of a state’s control over its own election procedures (10th Amendment & HAVA).  As far as background and facts, he relied on the loose assertions of the complaint, rather than the concise facts of the answer.

What this really boiled down to was the standard for granting a preliminary injunction, which would restrict the state’s ability to enforce its procedures.  ACORN must establish (1) the likelihood of success on the merits, (2) the preliminary injunction will prevent irreparable injury, (3) the lack of substantial harm to others, and (4) the public interest will be served.  How restricting a state’s ability to eliminate voter fraud protects the public interest and does not substantially harm lawful voters confounds me.  Perhaps I am not quite as learned as the honorable judge who granted the preliminary injunction.  Then again, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals must have been confounded as well, because they reversed his ruling without even writing an opinion.

In this case, ACORN failed at hijacking the electoral process.  This would not be its last stand, though.  Future cases focused on the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, instead of HAVA.  Project Vote began planning out its attack far in advance of elections.  And the Secretary of State Project formed to oust uncooperative secretaries of state.  In 2010, should Benson win, she will need to be carefully watched.

Fox News is reporting that absentee ballots were fraudulently cast with stolen identities, and that the number of allegedly fraudulent votes was enough to potentially tip the election in the favor of Working Families Party candidates.

Brian Suozzo voted with an absentee ballot in the Working Families Party primary on Sept. 15 because, as his application stated, he was “at home recovering from medical procedure.”

Jessica Boomhower’s application said she would be attending a “work conference in Boston.”

Michael Ward couldn’t vote in person because he was “taking care of elderly parent.”

Kimberlee Truell was on a “Bus trip to casino,” as was Miguel Vazques.

The only problem with these absentee ballot records at the Rensselaer County Board of Elections in Troy, N.Y., is that they’re phony, voters and investigators say — and they’ve prompted what’s being called an unprecedented investigation of suspected voter fraud.

One person who must comment on these developments is ACORN Chief Organizer and Working Families Party co-founder, Bertha Lewis.

Also from the Fox News article linked above:

Critics also accuse the Working Families Party of having a long association with the troubled activist group, ACORN. Bertha Lewis, ACORN’s CEO, is one of the party’s co-founders. The New York Times reported this month that “Patrick Gaspard, the White House political director, worked with ACORN in New York to set up the Working Families political party and sat on the party’s board with Ms. Lewis.”The WFP has also endorsed New York Democratic Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, who was one of only seven Senators who voted against cutting federal housing funds to ACORN in September.

Patrick Gaspard might be a good person to seek out for comment, too. He shouldn’t be hard to find since he works for the White House.

If you are scratching your head wondering how a leader of an obscure, local third party could wind up in an influential position in the Obama administration, it might have something to do with the fact that Barack Obama, in addition to being the nominee of the Democratic party, was also the proud nominee of the Working Families Party in New York State.

Yes, that’s right – when Barack Obama ran for president in 2008 in the state of New York, he did so as a member of the Working Families Party.

The image above is from the New York Board of Elections website.

Below is Bertha Lewis in her own words, asking people to vote Obama on the Working Families Party line:

And here is a commercial [below] which Working Families Party produced, urging people to vote Obama on the Working Families Party line:

This is not just a loose association with the group. This is a full embracing of the Working Families Party platform, which includes socialized medicine, “making the wealthy pay their fair share,” and redistributing property tax dollars evenly across all districts to fund public schools and universities statewide.

Again, in their own words [below]: “Tax the rich and give it back to the poor” (1:20):

The major benefit to being a member of a group like ACORN and SEIU’s Working Family Party, is that the relationship comes with its own built in mob-action media machine. This comes in very handy when you want to send people to the homes of AIG employees to vilify them for bonuses the government signed onto just months earlier.

If you are struggling to remember that event, the fine folks at Working Families Party produced a short video about it.

This is the very group whose anger President Obama said he didn’t want to quell.

No wonder he supported them. They supported him.

Change!

For Background information on Working Families Party connections to ACORN, SEIU, The New Party, and the Democratic Socialists of America, click here.

And Here.

Margaret Williams, Maryland ACORN board member and Sonja Merchant-Jones, Baltimore ACORN President both reported that the low level ACORN employees caught on tape in the Baltimore office were immediately terminated for behaving unprofessionally; but yet, senior staff members who assisted and concealed a million dollar Rathke embezzlement remain employed.

The ACORN 8 commends these board members’s decisive action, but find it extremely ironic since the board of directors do not actually control ACORN employees. According to ACORN’s by-laws that authority is exclusively exercised by the “Chief Organizer,” formerly Wade Rathke and now Bertha Lewis. This fundamental disconnect between an actual functioning board of directors and senior management is the true problem and real scandal within ACORN. It causes low-income members and staff to become mere pawns of senior management.

Ultimately, ACORN’s low-income workers are simply trying to meet and fulfill unreasonable membership quotas set by senior staff. This undue management pressure results in fraudulent voter registrations, tax assistance for “pimps and prostitutes” or worse. Poor governance and lack of accountability are the real problems. Voter fraud or rather voter registration fraud are just symptoms of a far greater problem. And that is the lack of meaningful control and accountability by the membership. So don’t fault poor workers – blame the board!

If ACORN hopes to survive then the know-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing board of directors must by replaced by individuals with the strength and capabilities to fulfill their fiduciary obligations and the courage to reign in corruption by ACORN’s senior management. If they fail, it is the low income communities which ACORN serves which will suffer the loss.

The damage to the ACORN brand and its overall effectiveness has been immeasurable due to poor governance, mismanagement and corruption within senior management. Consequently, the board of director’s missed the last best chance to save ACORN through reform. It seems apparent to all, except the most ardent and the culpable, that ACORN has been mortally wounded; and the only question now is who goes down with the ship?

But it may already be too late; ACORN had its chance to do the right thing following the million dollar Rathke embezzlement. There was a glimmer of hope when the board of directors appointed an interim management committee tasked to investigate the embezzlement and reorganize ACORN. But they were terminated for seeking a forensic audit.

From the very beginning, the ACORN 8 have always sought to reform – not destroy – the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now. But now find it impossible to imagine that even this once venerable association can withstand the latest onslaught of negative publicity.

The Census Bureau and IRS recently severed ties with ACORN, and the U.S. Senate voted 83 to 7 to cut off funding for the embattled group. The House followed suit by a vote of 345 to 75. Unfortunately, this is yet another example of poor governance, mismanagement and corruption within the once venerable organization. ACORN cannot survive if it can’t raise any more money.

No More Charitable Donations: No tax exempt 501(c )(3) organization will donate money to ACORN under the present circumstances. Since they cannot prove that the 501(c )(3) funding was not commingled with partisan activities.

No More Federal Contracts: Likewise, the federal government has already begun to sever ties to ACORN and could not fund the association through CCI a registered lobbying organization.

No More Negotiated Settlements: ACORN no longer possesses the necessary moral authority to pressure corporations or any organization through public demonstrations or protests. Thus, even this revenue stream will be unavailable to ACORN.

ACORN has been hijacked by senior staff and executive leadership who are acting in their own personal interest and not the best interest of the association or its membership. Only one question remains. Is ACORN now dead on arrival?!?

ACORN has survived in the past as a surprisingly well funded, politically well connected, dictatorial operation which flew under the public’s radar. Ironically, the election of President Barack Obama was actually the worst thing that could happen to ACORN. The attention that the election of the first African-American and community organizer to the highest office in the land has made it impossible for ACORN to avoid real scrutiny as it has in the past. Ironically, President Obama’s ascent has turned into ACORN’s demise.

Bertha Lewis, the head of ACORN, is one tough nut.

She came to the National Press Club on Tuesday, ostensibly to report on the community group’s “internal probe” into the ACORN workers who were caught on tape advising people posing as a pimp and a prostitute. But Lewis made it clear that, far from apologizing, she was on a “set-the-record-straight tour” — and a tour de force it was.

The internal review by ACORN’s board, disclosed this week by the Louisiana attorney general, that $5 million had been embezzled from the group rather than the $1 million previously alleged? “This is speculation, completely false and not based on any documentation or any audit or anything other than two disgruntled former board members,” Lewis reported.

Accusations of voter fraud after ACORN workers filled out voter registrations for Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys? “An utter fabrication and a work of fiction that was created by the people who wrote it.”

The report by Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee that ACORN created a “shell game that funneled charitable funds to for-profit organizations”? “Another stretch of allegations of how to pound on ACORN. . . . It’s just false.”

And, of course, the secretly recorded videos of ACORN workers providing help to people claiming they wished to set up an underage-prostitution business? “These highly edited tapes,” Lewis said, “don’t tell the whole story.” ACORN’s accusers “have to stoop to break the law in order to create something sensational,” she added.

In creativity, the ACORN boss’s denials were matched only by her assignments of blame. She blamed her predecessor: “I don’t think it’s fair to judge me, as I’m cleaning up a previous administration.” She blamed the powerful: “We’ve seen this play before, whether it was the civil rights movement or whatever, when you organize poor people to have real power, what you do is often turned against you.” And most of all, she blamed Republicans: “The RNC . . . because we’ve been inflated as the boogeyman, raises almost $2 million a day, every day, and this form of modern-day ACORN McCarthyism has got to stop.”

Assigned only a minor role in this orgy of blame were ACORN and Lewis herself. “My biggest weakness is a certain naivete about folks coming after you,” she said in a moment of self-interested introspection. “I guess maybe others might have known and could have set up some other barriers and could’ve been better with media and PR.”

Read the whole story here. But, first savor this quote. Perhaps one of the best Big Media comments during this breaking saga:

But Lewis, in playing the victim, is her own worst enemy. Forget the film of the pimp and prostitute: Watching a film of Lewis’s performance yesterday would probably be enough to cause lawmakers to cut off ACORN’s federal funding.

From the office of U.S. Senator Mike Johanns:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Ann Marie Hauser (202) 224-4796

October 5, 2009 Chris Hunt (402) 476-1400

Jake Thompson (202) 224-8795

JOHANNS, NELSON INTRODUCE BILL TO BAN FRAUDULENT ORGANIZATIONS FROM RECEIVING FEDERAL MONEY

WASHINGTON – Senators Mike Johanns and Ben Nelson today introduced a bill to cut off all federal funding for any organization whose employees have been convicted of voter fraud. The bill comes after Senator Johanns successfully barred the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), whose employees have been convicted on 70 counts of voter fraud, from receiving funding via three spending bills recently passed by the Senate.

“Senator Nelson and I strongly believe in the protection of taxpayer dollars, and this bill is a clear way of working towards that goal,” Johanns said. “Let the message be clear: Americans should not be helping to fund any organization whose employees use the money to commit fraud or any other reprehensible practices.”

“This legislation builds on actions taken to cut off federal funding for ACORN,” Nelson said. “To further protect taxpayers’ money, this bill extends that prohibition to all forms of federal assistance, and all groups who violate our election laws. And we require a report, so Congress can know exactly which organizations we need to watch out for.”

Full text of the legislation can be found here.