Big Government » Albert Wynn

DNC Chair Wasserman Shultz’s Desperate Attempt To Disenfranchise Republican Voters

Jeff Dunetz — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 15:31:18 +0000

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz has never been known as the sharpest pencil in the box, but since she took over as the head of the DNC she has added nasty to her profile. Her latest project is to try and water-down the impact GOP votes by allowing voter registration fraud across the country, and she is using the ‘Republicans are bigots” card to do it. She wrote an op-ed in US News and World Report claiming that Republicans are trying to restrict voting, especially minority voting with laws aimed at reducing voter fraud and requiring people to show ID when they show up to vote.

Across the country, Republicans are working to restrict Americans’ right to vote by enacting laws that curb when and how they can register to vote and go to the polls. For example, Republicans in Maine’s legislature have voted to end Election Day registration, a widely popular practice that, in 2008 alone, allowed 60,000 Mainers to register to vote.

The problem with the election day registration is it makes fraud easy because town clerks became overwhelmed with trying to verify the voter information.

The bill was strongly supported by town clerks, who said they have been overwhelmed by increasing numbers of voters who cast absentee ballots and who wait until Election Day to register. The measure also had the support of Secretary of State Charles Summers, whose office oversees elections in Maine.

House Speaker Robert Nutting, R-Oakland, applauded the bill’s passage Monday.

“This bill will alleviate a significant amount of the growing stress on our election system by making minor changes to registration and absentee ballot deadlines,” Nutting said. “These changes will go a long way toward maintaining the integrity of our voting system, while providing an open and accessible voting process for all Mainers.”

Shultz goes on to criticize attempts to clean up the voter registration system directed at groups such as ACORN, who were convicted of using voter drives as a way to load the system with fake democratic voters.

And in my home state of Florida, early voting days were eliminated as part of a 158-page bill that also enacted onerous restrictions and steep fines on organizations that conduct voter registration drives.

These kinds of laws have a detrimental impact on all Americans, but they particularly affect minorities. The nonpartisan, nonprofit Project Vote has found that African-Americans and Latinos are more likely than white voters to register through a voter registration drive. That means that in Florida, where the League of Women Voters has halted its voter registration activities as a result of the new Republican law, fewer minority Americans will have the chance to register and vote.

“The non partisan Project Vote,” is not non partisan. It’s part of ACORN and as my friend Anita Moncreif testified to, Project Vote was very involved with trying to elect Democratic Candidates especially Barak Obama. Some of the charges included:

Project Vote development plan was to “approach maxed out presidential donors” and allegedly use the funds raised for voter registration drives
ACORN “employees” were paid through Project Vote for partisan campaign activities, such as telling voters “don’t vote for Albert Wynn (sic) or vote for this person”
In reality, there was no division between the staff of ACORN and Project Vote and persons working for one entity performed work for either or both organizations
ACORN chose the states in which Project Vote would conduct voter registration drives, based on political considerations
Registration drives (by Project Vote) conducted in ‘battleground states” where “by coming in and registering new voters, it could change the outcome of the election”
The Obama campaign’s donor list was part of the evidence admitted into the hearing on the injunction in October 2008
ACORN Political is the ‘strategic planning arm’ of ACORN, and it looks at contested congressional districts, ballot measures, initiatives like minimum wage, etc.
Project Vote had a $28,000,000 budget which was funneled through Citizens Consulting Incorporated (“CCI”)

Schultz proceeds to act like she has never read a newspaper:

Despite a complete lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud, Republicans have made it a priority to enact costly photo ID legislation that would restrict the voting rights of eligible Americans. In states like Wisconsin, Texas, and Kansas, Republican governors and legislators campaigned on small government and fiscal austerity, but now they are allocating millions of dollars for new photo ID requirements.

Acorn has been charged or convicted of voter registration fraud in (by my count) 16 different states in recent years. Wassermann-Schultz is ignoring that fact (here is a partial list). In the DNC Chair’s own state, ACORN tried to register Mickey Mouse.

For the best look at ACORN and its criminal activities, allow me to suggest Matthew Vadum’s Book Subversion, Inc.

According to the Congresswoman guaranteeing an honest vote should not be a priority of government.

In Wisconsin, implementing photo ID requirements will cost the state at least $7 million, and the Institute for Southern Studies has estimated that North Carolina’s photo ID bill would cost between $18 million and $25 million. As states continue to face billion-dollar budget deficits, lay off teachers, and shrink police departments, spending millions of public dollars for partisan gain is the height of irresponsibility. Despite the high price tag, the GOP has advanced photo ID mandates in more than 30 states. These laws would increase the barriers to voting for the 11 percent of Americans—including disproportionate numbers of elderly Americans and minorities—who lack the required ID.

The concept of one man one vote is essential to the freedoms of the American republic. Allowing people to vote more than once, or allowing people to vote who shouldn’t partially disenfranchises those who are legally voting. The weight of the legal votes is watered-down by the inclusion of illegal votes. I would argue that protecting the concept of one man one vote should be a top priority of our government. But to Schultz and many progressives they call it racism in a desperate and illegal attempt to increase the number of Democratic voters.

Inside ACORN’S Political Plans: Ensuring a Democrat Majority

Anita MonCrief — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:31:02 +0000

According to a report from Ohio today, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the ACORN-tainted Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, to investigation ACORN’s voter registration work in the state.

“U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan has formally asked Ohio’s secretary of state to look into allegations that ACORN had at least a preliminary plan to back Democrat candidates in key Ohio congressional races in 2008.”

The political plan was described in an October article as “having been scaled back,” and of course, ACORN denied any partisan activity.

“But to some, ACORN’s early 13-page plan for the 2008 election reinforces what critics always assumed: The group’s goal was never nonpartisan. The political plan and other ACORN documents show that the group was interested not just in helping presidential candidate Barack Obama, whom it urged its members to support, according to post-election Federal Election Commission reports. ACORN also was interested in Congress and the Ohio Statehouse.

“There’s no question that ACORN strategized to figure out how its election efforts could maximize the benefit for selected Democratic candidates in the most competitive races,” U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of California told The Plain Dealer. “

An illuminating fact not mentioned in either article is that ACORN prepared political plans for several key battleground states in 2006 and again during the 2007-08 election cycle. As evidenced by the draft plans developed in the Spring of 2006 by the Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD) of ACORN Political Operations, these plans were aimed at electing “progressives” and in some cases broke down the Congressional districts by race for maximum targeting. SWORD, which was staffed by Project Vote employees, including myself, worked with ACORN head organizers in FL, MD, MI, MN, OH, PA, and RI to create local documents for the ACORN field staff to implement and present to funders and/or various partner organizations.

A copy of the Maryland and Colorado draft plans from 2006 are available online. Key parts of the plans are the contact and Congressional district sections at the end. For example, in the Maryland plan, it calls for mailings and face to face contact. A screen shot of the type of mailing Marylanders received is shown below.

ACORN used Project Vote staff and computers to create the PowerPoint “Campaign for a New Congress.” This PowerPoint was aimed at swaying the Congressional election in Maryland from Albert Wynn to ACORN ally Donna Edwards. Using the final political plan, ACORN canvassed voters and mailed pieces through its affiliate Communities Voting Together.

Communities Voting Together has the same address as the Project Vote office in DC and its address on the screen shot above is the same Elysian Fields address where hundreds of other ACORN entities “reside.

As a 527 group, Communities Voting Together paid over 150,000 to Citizen’s Services Inc, and contributed to Wade Rathke’s Chief Organizer Fund. Jeff Robinson is listed as the contact for Communities Voting Together and some may remembered Robinson from the 2008 elections (emphasis mine):

“In fact, the Obama campaign paid an ACORN-run organization more than $800,000. In Federal Election Commission required filings, the Obama campaign reported that this money was paid for polling, advance work and event staging. After watchdog scrutiny called this claim into question, the Obama campaign revised its filing and acknowledged that CSI was paid for “get-out-the-vote” projects.

CSI Executive Vice President Jeff Robinson last August told Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter David M. Brown that CSI is a ’separate organization entirely’ from ACORN. But as Brown reported, CSI has the same office address as ACORN’s national headquarters, ACORN itself described CSI in 2006 as its ‘campaign services entity.’ Coincidentally, the widely identified “national deputy political director for campaigns and elections” for ACORN is…Jeff Robinson.”

ACORN’s shell corporations make it easy for a political plan to become a partisan voter registration drive facilitated by thin veiled “partnerships.” The filing reports of Communities Voting Together raise a number of questions, including whether the misspelling of the name on the filing was intentional. The payments to various ACORN entities should give any astute lawmaker pause.

ACORN has been able to claim that it never worked in some recent elections including NY-23, but as this screen shoot illustrates, Communities Voting together was mailing and passing out door knockers in 2006 for Corzine in New Jersey (without a mention of ACORN).

Will ACORN backed officials like Jennifer Brunner (who has her eye on a Senate seat) and officials in Maryland and Colorado take notices of these obvious attempts to elect Democrats, or will they continue to turn a blind eye to ACORN in order to save themselves?