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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Last month, New York’s highest court heard oral arguments in the case of Goldstein v. New York State Urban Development Corporation. At issue was the state’s controversial seizure of private property on behalf of a 22-acre development project known as the Atlantic Yards. Situated in central Brooklyn, this taxpayer-subsidized boondoggle was the brainchild of real estate tycoon and New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner, who wants to build an “urban utopia” complete with more than a dozen office and apartment towers, a 180-room hotel, and a fancy new basketball arena for Ratner’s Nets to call home.

Real Estate Tycoon Bruce Ratner and ACORN's Bertha Lewis

To get his way, Ratner turned to his buddies in big government, specifically the Empire State Development Corporation, a controversial state agency with the power to bypass zoning laws and seize private property via eminent domain. In other words, this is a classic case of eminent domain abuse. Ratner isn’t building a bridge or a tunnel or any other legitimate public project that might justify the forceful taking of private property by the state. He wants to build a basketball arena, sell tickets to the games (not to mention broadcast rights, concessions, and luxury boxes), and collect a big fat profit.

So what in the world is ACORN, a self-described champion of “social and economic justice” and “low- and moderate-income people” doing in bed with a shady corporate powerbroker like Bruce Ratner? Let’s follow the money.

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