Voter Fraud Watch: Could ACORN Scandal in Washington Have Been Avoided With Photo ID?
By Eric Shawn and Becky Diamond
Editor’s note: The following is the first in an ongoing series about voter fraud in the U.S. Send FOX News your leads about suspected or proven election fraud at voterfraud@foxnews.com.
The Supreme Court ruling earlier this week that allows states to require voters to produce photo I.D.s is drawing criticism from voter registration groups, including one that was busted for election fraud in 2006.
ACORN is trying to register one million new voters this year and brands the decision, “One more strike against the basic right to vote … that further disenfranchises people of color and low income Americans.”
But if photo I.D. requirements had been the law in Washington state, the voter fraud scandal involving ACORN in 2006 would never have happened. According to Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed, the incident “was the worst case of election fraud in our state’s history. It was an outrage.”
Two years ago ACORN submitted just over 1,800 new voter registration forms, but there was a problem. The names were made up — all but six of the 1,800 submissions were fakes. Reed said he was appalled.
“There is nothing more fundamental to a democratic republic and to a citizen of the United States than participating in selecting your public officials. For people to undermine that and try to perpetuate fraud on the system is an outrage,” he said.
The ACORN workers told state investigators that they went to the Seattle public library, sat at a table and filled out the voter registration forms. They made up names, addresses, and Social Security numbers and in some cases plucked names from the phone book. One worker said it was a lot of hard work making up all those names and another said he would sit at home, smoke marijuana and fill out the forms.
John Jones, the head of ACORN’s Washington state office insists the situation was isolated
“It was a difficult time but you know what, that was the exception and not the rule. The exception was that something did not go right,” Jones said, denying that the organziation was responsible.
When authorities saw the forms ACORN’s employees submitted, they suspected they were forged. King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg filed felony charges against seven of the workers, five of whom pleaded guilty and went to jail.
Satterberg said showing a photo I.D. when people sign up to vote is the best way to prevent voter fraud.
“The most secure way to make sure the people who are coming to register are the people that they say they are is to require a picture I.D.”
But despite the scandal, ACORN believes that kind of requirement is too restrictive. Jones is proud of his organization’s record.
“We registered 40,000 people to vote (that year) so that made it a great year but you know we had a group of people who made a very, very bad move. When we found out we had a small handful of morons who decided to take it upon themselves to defraud the people of Washington state. … We (were) upset,” he said.
ACORN paid a $25,000 settlement and agreed to monitoring of its voter registration efforts. While the ACORN office in Tacoma is still signing up new voters, no one needs a photo I.D. to register or vote. The democratically-controlled state Legislature turned that idea down.
Tell us your voter fraud story at voterfraud@foxnews.com.
If you don’t have enough integrity to be able to produce a photo ID when you register to vote, then you don’t have enough integrity to be voting for the President of this country.
Please distinguish between REGISTRATION fraud and VOTE fraud. Obviously none of these made up voters will actually vote. On the other hand, a legitimate resident without a photo ID who shows up at the polls is a disenfranchised voter.
I don’t get it… who doesn’t have a photo ID? About the only group of people I can even think of would be the perennial homeless.
If you are not a proven citizen of the United States of America you should have no right to vote and however one goes about proving that they are a LEGAL CITIZEN with the proper documents is what is needed. We have been too lax for too long and we have too many illegals here and enough is enough.
I am a Naturalized Citizen of the United States, I did it legally and I don’t understand why the rest can’t. I was employed legally, paid my taxes legally and did everything just as if I was born here.
We need to quit babysitting the liberal agenda and do what is right for the American people!
BUTTE MONTANA…. GOOD DEMOCRATIC CITY… “VOTE EARLY AND VOTE OFTEN.”
If many other democratic countries can require its citizens to produce a photo-ID or a govt. issued ID before you vote, I don’t understand why the US cannot do so. Only the ones that favour voter registration fraud will object to the idea of producing a photo-ID.
If voting is important to the voter, they will support a legitimate process. It’s not much to ask a person to confirm who they are. Presumeably, these same individuals do live and breathe. If so, either they or their caretakers certainly take the time to wait in various government offices, fill out piles of forms, either for healthcare needs, social security, insurance applications, even grocery store discount cards. Why would we expect any less effort to ensure the integrity of something as important as our voting process?
It could help but to really tackle the problem is must be a ID that proves they are real Americans. Anything else is a bandaid.
You know–the only folks who scream about voter ID are the ones with a hidden agenda. It goes without saying that anyone with a shred of common sense knows this is the solution. But the left-wingnuts continue to use this as a crippling device to further keep their selected voter blocs under their thumb and deny people the integrity of the right to vote. THE RIGHT TO VOTE IS A PRIVILEGE GUARANTEED BY THE CONSTITUTION. VOTER FRAUD IS NOT.
Surely almost everyone has a picture ID so they can buy liquor and cigarettes. It is still more common for those people who liberals call disinfranchised to be smokers and drinkers than not. No one is going to have a problem with photo ID. They already have them.
Please check out the manner in which the Hawaii caucasus were run this year. My sister lives on the Big Island. She said that at the Democratic caucasus they didn’t ask for ID’s, or check registration. Anyone could walk in and vote just by raising their hand. I’m from California and find this very unorthodox.