ACORN's successful voter registration drive drew partisan attack

ACORN President Maude Hurd helps a new voter complete a registration form.

This week's issue of Newsweek ( "Rove: A moving target") highlights the effort by Karl Rove and other partisan political operatives to attack ACORN's successful, non-partisan 2006 voter registration campaign with bogus charges of "voter fraud."  Newsweek reports:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' ex-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, testified last week that 'during the run-up to the midterm elections,' the A.G. told him Rove had 'complained' that David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, and two other federal prosecutors, were not doing enough to prosecute voter fraud—a top GOP priority. It was shortly after that, Sampson said, that Iglesias got added to the list of U.S. attorneys to be fired. (Iglesias told NEWSWEEK he had been repeatedly pushed by New Mexico GOP officials to prosecute workers for ACORN, an activist group that was registering voters in minority neighborhoods, but he found no cases worth bringing.)

ACORN President Maude Hurd said: "ACORN members are disturbed to learn that helping African Americans and Latinos register to vote invites legal harassment from the White House. But ACORN will continue to fight to protect the voting rights of all American citizens and will spare no effort to encourage voter participation in our communities."

In 2006, ACORN volunteers and staff helped more than 540,000 low income, young and minority citizens apply to become registered voters. ACORN has helped more than 1.6 million people register to vote since 2003.

An ACORN organizer discusses the Ohio wage increase initiative with new voters.

"For people in our communities, registering to vote is part of an effort to better their lives," Hurd said. In 2006, ACORN led successful campaigns to increase the minimum wage by ballot initiative in AZ, CO, OH, MO, as it did in Florida in 2004. These wage increase campaigns drew thousands of new voters to the polls--and also generated attacks on the organization from wage increase opponents.

After ACORN's successful 2004 minimum wage ballot initiative in Florida, wage increase opponents admitted in court to making false and defamatory charges about the organization's voter registration effort. In 2006 ACORN successfully sued Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell to overturn burdensome restrictions on voter registration drives and forced a Republican election official in Missouri to rescind an intimidating letter sent to 5,000 new registrants.

"Our 2006 get out the vote campaign helped pass wage increases that are making it easier for over 1.5 million workers to provide for their families," Hurd said. "These efforts are vital to our communities and we will not be intimidated or deterred by anyone."

Several other recent reports document partisan attempts to supress minority voter turn-out by attacking civic groups that help new voters register, including: ";The Politics of Voter Fraud", a report by Project Vote; an investigative article and an editorial in the New York Times, and an op-ed in the Washington Post.