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4 ACORN Workers Indicted in KC
By Antonio D. French
PUB DEF has confirmed that four ACORN workers have been indicted today in Kansas City in a case of voter registration fraud similar to those currently being investigated by the U.S. Attorney in St. Louis.
More details to come...
UPDATE: The four indicted workers are Kwaim A. Stenson, age 19; Stephanie L. Davis (aka Latisha Reed), age 39; Brian Gardner, age 40; and Dale D. Franklin, age 44. Each are charged with two Class D felonies relating to submitting voter registration cards with false names and/or addresses.
 Here are PDFs of the actual indictments: Stenson, Davis, Gardner, and Franklin.
ACORN has released the following statement:
Leaders of the community group ACORN today applauded the FBI for the steps it is taking to investigate individuals suspected in several cases of possible voter registration fraud that the group reported to authorities during a recent ACORN voter registration drive in the Kansas City area.
The individuals under investigation were temporary workers, hired--and later fired—by Kansas City ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to help in its large-scale voter registration drive, which helps thousands of Kansas City residents register to vote.
ACORN took the initiative on October 11 to contact the Kansas City Board of Elections and the Jackson County Prosecutor when the organization’s standard review process identified suspicious voter registration applications. ACORN provided to the Board and the prosecutor a letter with the name and contact information of the former employees who had collected the suspicious application. ACORN then facilitated the subsequent FBI inquiry by providing internal records documenting ACORN’s suspicion and other information as requested.. ACORN will continue to provide its full support and cooperation in the investigation.
"When we caught this misconduct, we reporter [sic] it to the authorities. Now we want to see these folks prosecuted to the full extent of the law, because they have defrauded our organization, and, worse, detracted from our mission of ensuring that citizens in our community participate in the democratic process," said Claudia Harris, Chairperson of Kansas City ACORN
"Like the FBI, ACORN considers any interference in the voting process to be a very serious matter," Harris continued. "Across the state our attorneys today reached a settlement with the St. Louis Board of Elections to issue a retraction of the intimidating letter they sent out to thousands of voters we registered. Vigilance is needed to make sure that Scott Leindecker's St. Louis Board of Elections does not engage in any other dirty tricks to suppress the African American vote."Labels: ACORN, Crime
Link to this story
ACORN to Address Fraud Allegations
By Antonio D. French
UPDATE: ACORN representatives tell us today's press conference has been cancelled because of "new information" regarding a possible agreement between the group and the Board of Elections on the recent letters mailed to voters registered by ACORN workers.
Representatives from the embattled Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) will hold a press conference at noon today in front of the St. Louis Board of Elections to address recent allegations made by election officials in St. Louis City, County, and Kansas City.
Check back later for details...
And as we predicted over the weekend, a letter sent last week from the Board of Elections to thousands of people that were registered to vote by ACORN workers has indeed sparked criticism from civil rights groups.
Denise Lieberman, the former legal director for the ACLU of Eastern Missouri and the current voter protection coordinator for the Advancement Project, a DC-based civil rights organization, told KSDK yesterday, "The cards that were subject of this letter were based on a registration that was targeted to the African-American community."
She told Channel 5 reporter Rebecca Wu, "Our concern was the letter was suggestive to voters was that if they failed to place a phone call to the election board and to sign the bottom of that letter, in fact their application would not be processed."
The Board has drafted a second letter, with the help of the Advancement Project, that aims to clear up the confusion. It will be mailed out today.Labels: ACORN
Link to this story
VIDEO: ACORN Workers Remain Unpaid, Make More GOTV Allegations
By Antonio D. French
PUB DEF EXCLUSIVE
Dozens of ACORN workers were disappointed Tuesday to find that the paychecks they were promised were still not available. And some gave even more details about the organization's GOTV activities which have recently drawn a formal complaint from the state's Republican Party and, according to one source, a visit last week from the FBI.
Marcus Holmes said he has worked for ACORN for more than a month and has yet to be paid. "First they said Friday. Came up here Friday, then they went from Friday to Monday. Monday to Tuesday. Now today, they don't know when its going to be up here," said Holmes, who told us he was in danger of being evicted from his apartment as a result.
Holmes was not alone. More than a dozen angry workers waited outside of ACORN's office on Manchester Street in south St. Louis, frustrated by the continued delays and empty promises. Inside, tensions ran even higher. Police were called after several loud confrontations almost turned physical.
"There's over a hundred-and-something people that haven't been paid," said Timothy Coopwood, an ACORN worker who was fired last week after the organization was hit with allegations of voter registration fraud.
Coopwood repeated claims made last week by other ACORN workers that they were instructed to go door-to-door and ask voters to support Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Claire McCaskill.
There is no evidence of a direct link between the McCaskill campaign and ACORN's GOTV efforts. But several ACORN workers told PUB DEF that they were told by ACORN managers that the effort was part of "Project Victory 2006", which is also the name for the Missouri Democratic Party's GOTV campaign.
Josephine Perkins, a 10-year veteran ACORN worker whose allegations of improper and illegal GOTV activities we first reported in an exclusive video report two weeks ago, was also at the office Tuesday picking up her last check from the organization.
Perkins told PUB DEF that FBI agents visited ACORN last week and that afterwards, managers at the organization instructed some employees not to cooperate with their investigation. [We will be following up on this part of the story later this week.]
Perkins and others again named Johanna Sharrard, ACORN's new political field director, as one of those giving instructions to get out the vote for McCaskill along with their efforts on behalf of Proposition B, the proposal to raise the state's minimum wage.
When we attempted to interview Ms. Sharrard again to respond to these allegations, we were asked to leave ACORN's offices. We were told that no one was available to speak to us on the record.
Check back later this week as we continue to investigate this developing story...
Related stories:
Exclusive: ACORN Workers Claim Illegal Activities
ACORN Under Fire
Labels: ACORN, Exclusive
Link to this story
GOP Files FEC Complaint Against ACORN
By Antonio D. French
The Missouri Republican Party filed a complaint yesterday with the Federal Elections Commission against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) citing reports by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and PubDef.net of problems with the organization's voter registration activities.
"The complaint against ACORN filed yesterday with the Federal Elections Commission alleges that the radical non-profit group is making illegal contributions to [Claire] McCaskill by using street workers to gather voter cards and urge people to vote for McCaskill," said the Republicans in a press release issued today.
"We will act promptly and aggressively to protect the honesty of the coming election," said Missouri Republican Party Executive Director Jared Craighead. "The actions we charge are egregiously unlawful. Because our evidence includes videotape, our complaint has a history-making quality. In Missouri’s long and sad history of urban vote fraud, this has to be the first time the vote-creating machinery can be followed on videotape."
The complaint specifically refers to PUB DEF's recent interview with fired ACORN worker Josephine Perkins, a ten-year veteran of the organization who told us that she was fired after she told co-workers to disregard orders to ask people to vote for McCaskill while they registered new voters.
Yesterday, the Post-Dispatch and KWMU reported that nearly 1,500 voter registration cards recently turned in by ACORN have been flagged as "potentially fraudulent" by the St. Louis Board of Elections.
Republicans also said the Kansas City Democratic director of elections identified about 3,000 of the 16,000 applications collected by ACORN examined so far bore discrepancies, including suspicious signatures, applicants being too young, and birth dates and Social Security numbers not jibing with state databases.Labels: ACORN, Party_News
Link to this story
ACORN Under Fire
By Antonio D. French
The Post-Dispatch's Jo Mannies is reporting that nearly 1,500 voter registration cards turned in recently by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) have been flagged as "potentially fraudulent" by the St. Louis Board of Elections.
This latest controversy comes just a week after we reported that several ACORN employees claimed they were instructed to tell people to vote for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Claire McCaskill when they were registering new voters and performing GOTV activities on behalf of the Give Missourians a Raise committee.
Thanks to Mannies for mentioning our report in her story.Labels: ACORN, Props
Link to this story
SPECIAL REPORT: ACORN Workers Claim Minimum Wage Funds Helping McCaskill
By Antonio D. French
PUB DEF EXCLUSIVE VIDEO REPORT
Several former and current workers demonstrated today in front of the St. Louis office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) demanding to be paid for work they had performed and alleging that they were instructed to tell people to vote for U.S. Senate candidate Claire McCaskill while registering voters in support of the proposed minimum wage increase.
Ten-year ACORN veteran Josephine Perkins claims she was fired last week, in part because she informed the teams she supervised that it was inappropriate and illegal for them to campaign for McCaskill while being paid by ACORN and Give Missourians a Raise, the political action committee which supports Proposition B and, according to campaign finance reports, has given money to ACORN to circulate its literature.
Several other ACORN workers also told PUB DEF that they were told to ask voters to vote for McCaskill. But Johanna Sharrard, the political field director for ACORN, denies that is the case.
"That's not going on in this office," she said. "It's not been the case at all."
She declined to say on-camera why Perkins was fired. But Perkins told us the reason Sharrard, who has been at the St. Louis office only four weeks, gave for her termination was theft, a charge she vehemently denies.
Another ACORN worker, Joseph Weick, said he has not been paid for work he did with the organization last month. He also said that he and others were told last week that they needed to re-apply for their positions, which he took as a termination.
"They refuse to give me my check," said Weick. "I guess there's at least about a half a dozen of us that have worked for these people and aren't getting paid."
Weick said he too was told to ask people to vote for McCaskill while registering voters and passing out literature supporting the minimum wage increase, which if true could be a violation of federal election laws.
"These are very serious allegations and we are reviewing our options as they relate to the McCaskill campaign and the potential exploitation of a tax-exempt organization that is supposed to help those who need help the most," said Rich Chrismer, a spokesman for McCaskill's opponent, Sen. Jim Talent.
The McCaskill campaign declined to comment for this story.Labels: ACORN, Exclusive, Video_Reports
Link to this story
Help Wanted: Communications Director
By Antonio D. French
John Cross, of The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (A.C.O.R.N.), has been acting as a psuedo Director of Communications for the El-Amin for State Senate campaign, writing and faxing press releases and getting the word out to "the community" about various campaign events. Today, Team El-Amin's need for a real D.O.C. was once again blast-faxed across the 4th District.
Dave Drebes of the Arch City Chronicle, a longtime supporter of Jeff Smith, one of El-Amin's four opponents in the August 8 election, published a press release written by Cross that refers to Smith, who is white, as "the known Caucasian candidate."
The release then states that polled voters in the mostly black district changed their support from Smith to El-Amin, who is black, after they "learned more about the candidates," suggesting that the poll may have been a push poll, a technique in which a campaign attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a real poll. According to Wikipedia, the mildest forms of push polling are designed merely to remind voters of a particular issue -- such as race.
Cross' communications skills have been called into question before. After Team El-Amin was hit by a double dose of "baby mama drama" and a politically tainted Channel 5 reporter, Cross was put in charge of notifying the media of the campaign's press conference which came four days after the KSDK report. PUB DEF and representatives from The St. Louis Argus, co-owned by El-Amin's father, were the only media that covered at the event.
With 27 days left in this close campaign, there's still time for a change in message -- and messenger.Labels: ACORN, Commercials
Link to this story
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