Truth behind Republican Florida ACORN Allegations

A good friend of mine is working hard in Florida registering voters, and pushing for a higher minimum wage, with ACORN. He's given me the inside scoop on what Republicans are falsely calling "Democrats trying to steal the election", and are using to distract from the real voter fraud perpetrated by Nathan Sproul and Associates.

One of the best things we can do right now is keep the Republican disenfranchisement and fraud meme alive and in front of people for the next few weeks. By letting the media know the truth behind the desperate republican allegations of "They're doing it too", we can clear the air now before the story gets submerged in whatever else happens. Details after the break.

First - ACORN's voter registration work is entirely non-partisan. While it does focus on minority communities and is therefore reasonably seen as leaning democratic - people are welcome to register regardless of affiliation.

The allegations of impropriety are coming from a guy, Mac Stuart, they terminated on August 5th "for failing to follow our procedures of how to run a proper voter registration effort." My friend adds " we were concerned that his failure to follow our protocols was inappropriate and could possibly lead to other problems."

Now we get to the good part - how good a witness is this guy? Not very -

Two weeks later, we were contacted by Total Bank in FL that he has attempted to cash a $5000 check from a donor and has crossed out another name and written in his own. We have a copy of this check and a signed affadavit from that attorney. We are presently, and have been for several weeks, trying to get law enforcement to investigate this matter.

My friend continues:

After we fired Mr. Stuart, he alleged that we were pulling out Republican cards. This is absolutely, completely untrue. To date, Mr. Stuart has presented no evidence, and there is none. He did get a number of papers and TV stations to air his attacks on us, though none but one even bothered to contact us about the situation. Apparently, Stuart shows in one of the TV interviews a large stack of Republican cards that were allegedly held by us. Now obviously they are or were in his possession. I believe that either 1. he swiped these during his employment with us; or 2. he collected these after we fired him and is using them to embarrass us.

Understand that the fact that this slimeball is very useful to both the national RNC and the local (eg. Florida restaurant industry) forces who are fighting against a minimum wage increase does not prove that he was placed at ACORN as an agent provocateur, just as the fact that he TRIED TO COMMIT A FELONY by cashing a check that wasn't made out to him does not prove that he is lying about ACORN - but he certainly seems to pass the duck test in my book.

Seemingly, I am not alone - a google news search suggests his baseless accusations only passed muster as "news" for the integrity-challenged Washington Times and NewsMax. This does not mean, however, that as an allegation this has gone away - the rightwing blogs and republican spokespeople still believe that citing ACORN is their best response to questions about Nathan Sproul and Associates-linked registration fraud. We have to take that away from them by making sure the SCLM knows the ACORN allegations are bogus.

It would also help to be sure of our own facts when we go on the offensive - so check in with the DKOS vote-fraud center to make sure we are not citing unproven allegations the way the Republicans do.

•  RECOMMENDED

  You, my friend, have done the research the media and just about everyone else has failed to do.

  by Plutonium Page on Sun Oct 17, 2004 at 08:46:22 PM PDT

  •  Also Recommended - Explains a Lot!

    This explains quite nicely why the Republicans pulled out ACORN as a response to the discovery of Operation Sproul. They were hoping to replace Sproul's accusers in the newscycle with Stuart. Fortunately, it looks like they've failed.

    by RHunter on Sun Oct 17, 2004 at 08:59:07 PM PDT

  •  Research disconcertingly easy . . .

    Thanks - but what is alarming is how easy this was to find out - I just asked someone at ACORN. Ok, so I happen to know one person at ACORN pretty well, and therefore know that I can trust what he tells me, but its not like any reporter in the country couldn't have found out the phone number to the ACORN HQ in Florida and taken the amazing step of actually CALLING THEM for their side of the story.
    
    We should be aware, however, of the amazing parallels between the liberal blogs saying "the other guys are trying to steal the election because they know they can't win any other way" and the republican blogs saying exactly the same thing. Ok, so the liberal blogs tend to have better spelling, longer words, and fewer invocations of the almighty - but the fact of the matter is that this is a VERY divided country, and that the two sides are VERY far apart - which makes it all the more disappointing when the media maintains or even exploits the divisions rather than works to heal them.

    by AikidoPilgrim on Sun Oct 17, 2004 at 09:03:02 PM PDT

    •  Re-post this diary tomorrow if it doesn't hit

      the recommended list tonight.

      Alternatively, post the link on the open thread, and to hell with anyone who says you're pimping your diary.

      People need to see this.

      by Plutonium Page on Sun Oct 17, 2004 at 09:19:31 PM PDT

      •  Grateful

        Plutonium - The diary has made the recommended list (a personal first, so I'm psyched). I thought that in the morning I might add the material somehow into the dkos voter registration fraud clearinghouse - which is where all the info, including this, should be available to people - independent of whether or not a diary about it is visible from the home page (because it really is hard to keep up with all the #$!& the republicans try to get away with, so keeping our eye on any one topic is a consistent challenge).

        by AikidoPilgrim on Sun Oct 17, 2004 at 09:27:45 PM PDT

    •  Bottom line

      is that some ACORN employees probably disobeyed policy and tossed a few GOP registrations.  There is no way to prevent that from happening.

      ACORN's policy is to turn in all cards regardless of party affiliation.  And that is the law.

      by BooMan23 on Mon Oct 18, 2004 at 07:10:52 AM PDT

  •  Recommended

    Good work.

    by dopies on Sun Oct 17, 2004 at 10:47:00 PM PDT

•  Also recommended

  I hope to see this hit the recommended diaries list.

  This diary is good rapid response to a smear.  Let's get it out there.

  by pontificator on Sun Oct 17, 2004 at 08:50:20 PM PDT

•  FUCK THE MEDIA

  This Florida ACORN BS appears a lot more than the Republicans destroying Democratic registrations in the media.

  by jfern on Sun Oct 17, 2004 at 09:01:38 PM PDT

•  very nice

  by storme on Sun Oct 17, 2004 at 09:01:49 PM PDT

•  "They do it too..."?

  This meme can be deflated somewhat by calling the scandal "vote suppression" rather than the generic "vote fraud". I suspect that most people think of voter registration fraud as falsely registering people, rather than falsely failing to register them. The more specific term gives less for the other side to throw back, saying "they do it too".

  Also, it would help to push a name for the scandal itself -- not just a term describing of the kind of fraud. "The RNC Sproul fraud" might serve. If people can stomach another "gate", "Votergate" (which someone has suggested) might serve.

  No one can say that the Dems are guilty of the "Sproul fraud", or of the RNC-perpetrated "Votergate scandal".

  by technopolitical on Sun Oct 17, 2004 at 10:40:53 PM PDT

  •  Sproul-Specific Meme

    Technopolitical makes a good point about taking the purported parity away from them by changing how we frame what the RNC and Sproul and Associates are guilty of. While Votergate rolls well off the tongue - it doesn't strike me as specific enough to nail the guilty but leave the rest alone. If we have corroboration of the registration-shredding events in NV (which is how the Sproul story broke, but if that was in fact a disgruntled employee or a self-appointed Democratic agent provocateur, then we should find stronger ammo somewhere else), then I think our best meme is RNC-LINKED VOTE SHREDDING.
    
    Thoughts? Provide some good alternatives and I can edit the diary to include a poll of the best candidates.

    by AikidoPilgrim on Sun Oct 17, 2004 at 11:16:19 PM PDT

    •  How about VOTE TRASHING?

      by citizen kilroy on Mon Oct 18, 2004 at 12:54:03 AM PDT

•  Perhaps Connected

  There are apparently two ACORN related cases in Hennepin County Minnesota that have been reforred to the County Attorney.  The first was a case of a former employee who had been fired, who deserted his rental car at the airport, and when the agency recovered it they found 900 completed voter registeration cards in the trunk.  The car had been parked in the wrong lot at the airport for about a month.  Apparently they have found credit card stuff, and have tracked the former employee/car renter back to a Republican group.

  Then, just this weekend, a car was stopped for a minor traffic violation, and 300 cards were discovered in that trunk.  I assume there will be a decision on indictment early this week.  Again it was a former ACORN worker.  

  Since Minnesota is a same day registeration state, the actual voters, if they show up at the polls, will be able to register and vote -- so the harm is less than in a state with a cut-off.  But the suspicion is that ACORN did not have any sort of vetting mechanisms in place, didn't assume that "this" would happen to them, and just didn't check the bonifides of its hires for registeration.  But they had a couple of big drives, and had cooperation from a number of local churches.  

  The County Attorney is Amy Klobacher -- so anyone who wants to inquire can contact her office.  

  by Sara on Mon Oct 18, 2004 at 12:34:30 AM PDT

  •  Lies and the Lying Liars who trash votes . . .

    Sara - This indeed seems an important piece of the puzzle - if we can make the case that there are multiple instances of republican operatives going undercover working for ACORN and ACT and then trying to generate bad publicity - we will have a full-fledged right wing conspiracy on our hands. OK, so we've known about the RWC for some time, but this time we'll have proof.
    
    So - Kossacks - your mission, should you choose to accept it - is to connect the dots between every purported ACORN or ACT transgression, and document the republican allegiance of the perpetrator. So far, we need to do this for:
    
    1] the two folk from Minnesota that Sara tells us about in her post above.
    
    2] Mac Stuart, of Florida
    
    3] ??? A quick search of the dKosopedia Voter Registration Fraud Clearinghouse didn't show me any other names for us to research, but if you know of more, this is the place to post them.

    by AikidoPilgrim on Mon Oct 18, 2004 at 04:13:59 AM PDT

  •  second seems to be ordinary case of fraud

    Then, just this weekend, a car was stopped for a minor traffic violation, and 300 cards were discovered in that trunk.  I assume there will be a decision on indictment early this week.  Again it was a former ACORN worker.

    
    

    Here is a link to a story about that case. St. Paul Pioneer Press | 10/16/2004 | Voter registration cards bring felony charge it looks like the guy was doing a fraud on ACORN rather than being some sort of GOP plant.

    
    

    Reed had been fired from his canvassing job with the Association of Community Organizations Seeking Reform Now, or ACORN, about two months before the voter registration cards were found in his trunk during a routine traffic stop Sept. 22.

    [. . . ]Early this month, Becky Gomer, the chief organizer for ACORN's voter registration drive, said Reed was one of a number of canvassers whom ACORN paid to register voters at a rate of $1 per voter.

    
    

    Gomer said ACORN supervisors fired Reed early this summer after hearing from Hennepin County investigators that they suspected Reed of registering some voters more than once to increase his pay. [. . . ]

    
    

    [DA] Klobuchar said: "He has been charged with a pretty straightforward charge. We are doing a further investigation of forgery charges involving duplicate cards."

    
    

    by Fred in Vermont on Mon Oct 18, 2004 at 05:42:18 AM PDT

•  Google search "Mac Stuart" -vote

  located this article which mentions a Mac Stuart who was "charged with armed robbery and burglary". It's possible that this is a different person, so this information should be used to check the police records for around that date (April 29, 1996) to see if it can be shown that this is the same person making the claims against ACORN.

  Yahoo's "People Search" didn't find any Mac Stuarts in Florida, but it linked to PeopleData that had 1 person with that name in Florida. It wanted $10 for phone numbers and addresses, so I didn't pursue it.

  You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one...

  by imagine on Mon Oct 18, 2004 at 05:37:26 AM PDT

  •  my guess is not the same guy . . .

    I'd think that if the Mac Stuart of the ACORN allegations were to be the republican plant that we are looking for - he would't have a criminal record for violent crimes - all we are looking for is that he's registered republican, or has given money to the Bush campaign, or was involved on Bush's side during the Hanging Chad saga 4 years ago . . . anything to make stick the claim that he was obviously intending to discredit ACORN when he signed up to work for them.
    
    complicating this, of course, is that if he is a republican plant, and this is a pre-meditated fraud, then odds are pretty good Mac Stuart is not his real name. Perhaps, however, ACORN does background checks that would have caught that. We'll see if anyone else can dig up any dirt on the guy . . .

    by AikidoPilgrim on Mon Oct 18, 2004 at 07:03:45 AM PDT

    •  Not necessarily Republican

      Check to see if he has any ties to the Employment Policies Institute, an organization dedicated to stopping the Florida Minimum Wage Initiative, or its constituent organizations.  In a press release, they were among the first to report his claims.  In fact, after reading the newspaper accounts, it seemed likely that they had simply reprinted much of what they had been told by the Employment Policies Institute.

      Perhaps the Employment Policies Institute is trying to set up ACORN as a prelude to a court challenge to the minimum wage initiative.

      (Note: The Employment Policies Institute should not be confused with the Economic Policy Institute, a union-funded think tank.)

      by Drew on Mon Oct 18, 2004 at 09:48:43 AM PDT