Citizens' Daily Lobby

The recent defunding of ACORN by the House and Senate will not have a large direct  financial effect on ACORN in Arkansas.   That’s because the group has not relied on federal funding, subsisting instead on membership dues, local fundraisers, donations, contracts and foundation grants, according to Neil Sealy, Head Organizer for ACORN in Little Rock.    A sister organization, the Arkansas Community Housing Corporation, has in past years contracted with the Department of Housing and Urban Development  for Fair Housing outreach and education.  ACHC has received satisfactory to outstanding ratings for the work, but it currently does not have a contract with HUD.

Widespread distrust of the national ACORN will likely lead to indirect financial problems for local chapters, however.  Potential donors are likely to view the widely-publicized ACORN scandals as being systemic throughout the organization and to divert their philanthropic dollars to groups they view as more trustworthy.    Local media may pick up the national headlines and portray a negative view without fully researching the local chapters.  In tough economic times, non-profits compete aggressively for decreasing private funding, and bad media coverage can certainly handicap an organization.

The fact is, that losing ACORN in Arkansas would mean losing a strong local support system for low- to middle- income communities.  Here in Little Rock, ACORN makes a positive difference by advocating for those in our society who are traditionally underserved.     In the current economic and real-estate crisis, the work ACORN does to keep  families in their own homes helps everyone by preventing foreclosures.   Who will help people like the Delaneys if not ACORN?  They had exhausted all other resources and were literally moving out of their home when ACORN and the Community Housing Corporation stepped in to help them negotiate a mortgage payment they could afford.

ACORN also helps minority and low-income communities make their voices heard politically.  In addition to conducting voter registration, they also host rallies and encourage citizens to contact their Congressional delegation about progressive issues.  It is these activities that most aggrieve conservatives. Whatever the problems with ACORN at the national level, and it is evident that there are some items of concern, it is evident that those who would indirectly suppress the votes and voices of minorities have much to gain by the recent negative publicity and wholesale repudiation of ACORN by both political parties.

In the wake of the recent ACORN controversies, I decided to look into the matter of voter registration fraud.  First, it should be made absolutely clear that voter registration fraud does not equal voter fraud.  That is,  false  registrations should not result in illegal voting.  If you vote, you know that there are safeguards in place to prevent that sort of voter fraud.  If voter fraud occurs, it’s a matter of lax oversight at the state and local levels.   All those voter registration cards have to be verified, and, importantly, they all have to be reported  to the Feds, regardless whether they are flagged as suspicious or downright bogus.  So, paid workers who make up voters to get a few extra bucks at the end of the day don’t cause upheaval and overthrow of American Democracy  by turning in cards for Mickey Mouse.

There is, however, a more insidious type of voter registration fraud that can affect voting.  That is registration switching.  This works when a voter registered in one party is tricked into switching party affiliation, generally by signing a petition.   In California, this type of fraud was allegedly perpetrated by Mark Jacoby, head of a Republican affiliated signature-gathering firm.  According to the LA Times, he used a fake petition to keep pedophiles in jail to get voters (80% of  a random sample of voters registered by him) to switch party affiliation without their knowledge.   It turns out he wasn’t even collecting those signatures legally, and for that he was indicted.

Yet another way to commit registration fraud is to actually destroy the registration cards of people who are not on your “team.”  Yes, the GOP has been associated with this move, too.  In 2004, a group led by Nathan Sproul, former  head of the Arizona Christian Coalition and Executive Director of the Arizona Republican Party, was accused of destroying voter registration cards in Oregon and Nevada.  According to the TimesOnline,  The group received more than $500,000 from the GOP during the 2004 election cycle.   The group also tried to pose as non-partisan by gathering voter registrations under the name of another group: AmericaVotes!  Mr. Sproul was back in 2008, this time as the head of a group named Lincoln Strategy, which received $175,000 jointly from  the McCain-Palin campaign, the Republican National Committee and the California Republican Party for the purposes of registering voters.   Mr. Sproul contributed $30,000 to the McCain ticket that year.

The TimesOnline provides a bit more information about the life and times  of Nathan Sproul

The career of Mr Sproul, a former leader of the Arizona Republican Party, is littered with accusations of foul play. In Minnesota in 2004, his firm was accused of sacking workers who submitted Democratic registration forms, while other canvassers were allegedly paid bonuses for registering Bush voters. There were similar charges in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Oregon and Nevada.  That year, Mr Sproul’s firm was paid $8,359,161 by the Republican Party, according to a 2005 article in the Baltimore Chronicle, which claimed that this was far more than what had been reported to the Federal Elections Commission.

In the high-stakes world of voter registration fraud, two truths appear evident.  1) ACORN does not corner the market and 2)ACORN fraud is relatively innocuous when compared to its  Republican counterpart.