[Vision2020] BOGUS VOTER BOOTED AMID PROBE OF ACORN

[No Weatherman]

BOGUS VOTER BOOTED AMID PROBE OF ACORN
4,000 OF LEFT-WING GROUP'S SIGN-UPS ARE SHADY
By JEANE MacINTOSH in Cleveland and MAGGIE HABERMAN in New York
October 14, 2008

Investigators probing ACORN have learned that an Ohio man registered
to vote several times and cast a bogus ballot with a fake address,
officials said yesterday, as they revealed that nearly 4,000
registration applications supplied by the left-leaning activist group
were suspect.

The vote of Darnell Nash, one of four people subpoenaed in a Cuyahoga
County probe of ACORN's voter-registration activities, was canceled
and his case was turned over to local prosecutors and law enforcement,
Board of Elections officials said yesterday.

Nash had registered to vote repeatedly from an address that belonged
to a legitimately registered voter, officials said during a hearing at
which the subpoenaed voters were to testify.

Board officials had contacted Nash this summer, questioned his address
and told him to stop repeat registering.

But still, he breezed into Ohio election offices - the state allows
early voting for president - reregistered with a fake address and cast
a paper ballot, officials said.

"He came in on 9/30 and Mr. Nash again registered to vote at [someone
else's] address, and he cast a ballot," said board official Jane
Platten.

Nash did not turn up for the hearing.

The Post reported last week on the Cleveland-area probe and the
subpoenas, which were sent out to four people - including two voters
who said they were hounded by ACORN workers to register over and over,
even when they warned they'd already done so.

It's the latest issue in the probe of ACORN's registering voters in
Ohio, one of at least nine states where officials are investigating
similar reports of phony sign-ups by the group.

At the same time, officials said, some 5 percent, or 3,650, of the
73,000 total registration cards turned in by ACORN in the Cleveland
area from its Project Vote initiative to sign up low-income voters
were "questionable," Platten said.

There were "egregious acts of registering multiple times," said
Platten. "The extent of it is beyond the resources of this board."

Nash's case and three others were turned over to authorities
yesterday, said Ryan Miday, a spokesman for prosecutor Bill Masson.

"We will consider presenting it to a grand jury," Miday said.

A member of the board said if necessary, the FBI or federal
prosecutors could be brought in for assistance.

Still, members of the bipartisan board downplayed any voter fraud.

And Platten insisted officials with ACORN have offered "any and all"
help in probing the questionable activities. Katy Gall, the Ohio state
director for ACORN, said her group is cooperating fully with the
investigation.

She added that her group has fired anyone who was found soliciting
duplicate registrations.
ACORN, whose political arm has endorsed Democratic nominee Barack
Obama, has signed up more than 1.3 million voters for this cycle.

ACORN adviser Scott Levenson said, "If one of the 13,000 [people] we
hired is potentially a bad apple in the bunch, we encourage the
authorities to prosecute, as appropriate, anyone that did the wrong
thing. We discipline [and] we fire workers who [abuse their position]
. . . We encourage prosecutors to follow suit."

He also denied suggestions that the group pays canvassers by the
number of names they sign up, and that they have quotas.

Also yesterday:

* Two of the four subpoenaed voters, Freddie Johnson and Christopher
Barkley, met privately with sheriff's deputies and described what
they'd told The Post about being hounded by ACORN workers. Barkley
testified at the hearing that some of the registration cards listing
his name weren't filled out by him.

* In an e-mail to supporters, John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin,
slammed "the left-wing activist group ACORN" and suggested, "We can't
allow leftist groups like ACORN to steal this election."
jeane.macintosh at nypost.com
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10142008/news/politics/bogus_voter_booted_amid_probe_of_acorn_133540.htm