Rock the Vote

Between the power of Labor Unions, and the Education system, and a media biased toward liberalism lay the heart of any great democracy: The Vote. While voting may seem like the most straightforward and pure expression of a representative government, there are those – the usual suspects – who continually, and persistently try to subvert the system for their own personal political gain. Naturally, I am referring to Democrats.

There are numerous political action groups, on both the left and right side of the political spectrum. But note the key difference between the two: While Conservatives encourage (and rely on) an educated and well-informed electorate to make choices for themselves, Liberals want to be entrusted with the power to make all of the choices for an uneducated and ignorant electorate. This perhaps explains why union members pay dues that are redirected to candidates they do not support, and why we have incompetent (or at least “unengaged”) educators whose curriculum does more to indoctrinate a liberal mindset than to impart a working understanding of math or science, or to instill a comprehensive understanding of our history, our culture, and the principles on which our nation was founded.

To further the left-wing worldview there are well-organized and well-funded political action groups like MoveOn.org, the Daily Kos, People for the American Way, and the various iterations of Rock the Vote, which act as “community organizers” whose primary goal in life is to grab the “young and dumb” and persuade them to vote for liberal, Democratic candidates. At the top of this heap is ACORN.

The Association of Community Organization for Reform Now is, according to their website, “the nation’s largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families working together for social justice and stronger communities.” While they claim to be non-partisan, the actions of ACORN suggest that they routinely engage in corrupt practices and illegal activities designed to increase Democratic voter registration and suppress Republican voter registration. Here are but a few examples:

- 2003: ACORN submitted 5,379 voter registration cards; over 60% of them were invalid, and at least 1,000 were believed to be attempts to register voters illegally.

- 2004: An ACORN employee admitted to forging signatures and registering three of her friends to vote 40 times.

- 2005: The Virginia State Board of Elections admonished ACORN when an audit revealed that 83% of sampled registrations carried false or questionable information, including Social Security numbers that existed for other people, listed non-existent or commercial addresses, or were for convicted felons.

- 2006: Eight ACORN employees were indicted on federal election fraud charges for forging signatures and submitting false information.

- 2007: Four ACORN employees were indicted in Kansas City for identity theft and filing false registrations during the 2006 elections.

At least two former ACORN employees have accused the group of illegalities in Florida. Former field operative Mac Stuart, who worked in Miami, claimed that ACORN failed to deliver registration cards that were marked “Republican,” accepted applications from felons, and routinely falsified information. Former consultant Joe Johnson quit two weeks before the 2004 election because he was concerned that ACORN was not turning in complete voter registration cards.

In Minnesota, ACORN employee Josh Reed was charged with a felony when voter registration cards were found in the trunk of his car after he was stopped for a traffic violation. Voter registration cards were also found in Albequerque during a drug investigation that was targeting an ACORN employee. Perhaps most egregiously, ACORN workers in Ohio registered a known illegal alien terrorist, Nuradian Abdi, who had plotted to blow up a Columbus mall.

Ever true to it’s character, in 2007 ACORN submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in opposition to Indiana’s voter identification law. The law, requiring Indiana residents to present identification before voting – as is required to rent a car, board an airplane, or cash a check – was presented as some kind of discrimination against poor, mostly minority citizens. Fortunately, common sense prevailed and the SCOTUS found Indiana’s law to be constitutional in early 2008.

In 2009, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles went undercover, with Mr. O’Keefe posing as a pimp to Ms. Giles’ prostitute. The two went to an ACORN Housing office in Baltimore and pretended to be interested in having ACORN help them get a house so they could set up a brothel using under-aged girls. Did the ACORN workers have any advice?

Turns out they did. For starters, they received a lot of tax advice, which primarily consisted of how to set up their business in order to dodge any federal scrutiny of the 13 young Salvadoran girls the “pimp” and “prostitute” were planning to smuggle into the country to staff their “brothel.” Everything from suggestions for fraudulent tax code designations to hide the nature of their business -- they should list their occupations as “artists” -- to making sure they taught the young Salvadorans the importance of “keeping their mouths shut.”

All of this and much, much more was recorded by Giles and O’Keefe, and a good jumping-off point is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtTnizEnC1U . There is more here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QV7kNMrsvI , and for even more on ACORN, you can check out http://biggovernment.com/ .

Of course, no discussion of ACORN would be complete without mention of the fact that one of President Barack Hussein Obama’s few legitimate claims of accomplishment was his work as a “community organizer” for an ACORN affiliate. But that leads us into a discussion about guilt-by-association, which is a topic we will examine at a later date, in far more detail.

There are plenty of other left-wing “organizers” out there working to influence our election processes, and it’s pretty much the same old story. Take for example The Media Fund (TMF), a tax-exempt campaign organization that the FEC fined $580,000 for violating federal campaign laws. It seems TMF failed to register and file disclosure reports as a federal political committee and knowingly accepted contributions in violation of federal source and limit prohibitions. Of the $59 million dollars raised by TMF, $55 million had come from labor organizations, corporations and individuals who were prohibited from contributing or whose contributions exceeded the $5,000 dollar limit. The FEC noted that “Most of the solicitations targeted the defeat of George W. Bush, and some of the solicitations targeted the election of John Kerry.” A TMF education mailer “contained express advocacy, referring to the ‘need’ for a particular kind of president, followed by identification of John Kerry as that type of candidate.” Other mailers “contained express advocacy because the advertisements attacked the character, qualifications and fitness for office of George Bush, or supported the character, qualifications and fitness for office of John Kerry.”

There are numerous instances of the Left trying to do “whatever it takes” to tip elections in their favor, but perhaps the most infamous examples of recent attempts by the Democratic Party to steal elections involved the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. They were so determined to win that no vote went unchallenged and no lawyer was left unemployed in their crusade. There were lawsuits, injunctions, depositions, claims and counter-claims, exhortations of “Voter fraud!” and all manner of kangaroo courts constructed in the media, designed to cast suspicion upon the validity of the various elections in which Republican candidates prevailed. It seemed that there was no limit to the lengths the Democratic Party would go to thwart an unfavorable outcome; the electoral process itself was put on trial.

They did fail, for the most part, but their tactics were successful in the Washington state Governor’s race of 2004 and the 2008 U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, two high-profile elections in which the Democratic candidates won under what can only be described as highly suspect circumstances. I’m afraid that some elections, particularly those in left-wing provinces, are predetermined from the start.

John Fund has written a book called “Stealing Elections,” in which he details voter fraud scandals in Miami, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee, from Maryland to Mississippi, and from Texas to California. An interesting aside is that 8 of the 19 hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were registered to vote in either Virginia or Florida.

Think the stakes aren’t high? When Al Franken was finally sworn in as the junior senator from Minnesota, in 2009, the Democrats had the filibuster-proof majority they have coveted for so long and they have been able to do whatever they’ve wanted to do. The crowning jewel, of course, is the brand new, unconstitutional entitlement program coming to a healthcare system near you.

Voting is a right of every citizen of good standing and is critical to ensuring that the “Voice of The People” is heard. To protect against voter fraud we must verify that every voter registration document is legitimate and we must require that every voter be able to provide a state- or federal-issue picture I.D. in order to cast their vote. We cannot continue to treat our national elections like 5th grade Field Day referendums. Your vote is a compact with America’s past, present, and future, and we must be far more serious and grown-up about our elections; anything less and we’re ignoring a danger that threatens to unravel our republic.

REFERENCES & ADDITIONAL READING

“Voter ID Fraud Doesn’t Exist Says ACORN,” by Amanda Carpenter, 11/26/07
http://www.rottenacorn.com/
“In Closing” by John McCaslin, 11/30/07