Ex-ACORN worker admits to registering 2,000 voters that never existed"
SEATTLE, Washington (CNN) -- Clifton Mitchell helped register nearly 2,000 voters for the community group ACORN. But not one of them actually existed.
Clifton Mitchell filled out voter cards using fake birthdays, Social Security numbers and baby-name books.
"I regret it. I paid the price for it," he said.
Mitchell was convicted last year and spent nearly three months in prison. He's one of the few ACORN workers convicted of voter registration fraud.
Today, he lives with his wife and two boys, ages 3 and 1, in a small apartment in suburban Seattle, Washington. Mitchell said he scammed the system because, "I needed money; I had to support my family and I was new to the area. It was the only job I had."
Mitchell said ACORN threatened to close the office if he and his team didn't meet their quota to register 13 to 20 voters a day. So, without consulting their supervisors, he said, they came up with a plan.
"We came up with the idea: Let's make fraudulent cards. I tell my crew, 'I don't care how you get 'em, just get 'em,' " Mitchell recalled. Video Watch Mitchell explain how they created voters »
They took addresses from homeless shelters, used fake birthdays and Social Security numbers and took names from baby books to create voters out of thin air.
"Every day I'd go to the library and get a newspaper," Mitchell said. "I had one guy who'd go to the phone book. Everyone had different methods."
The secretary of state called it "the worst case of voter registration fraud in the history of the state of Washington." ACORN was fined $25,000 and ordered to improve its oversight.
The group is under investigation in 10 states for voter registration fraud, and Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign has accused ACORN of trying to rig the election for Democrats.
But University of Washington law professor Eric Schnapper says the idea of fake cards turning into real votes is a myth.
"There are no known instances of fictitious people actually voting," Schnapper said. "You look at some of the names: Mickey Mouse. Dr. Seuss. Mickey Mouse only votes in Disneyland. He's not going to show up at a critical precinct in West Virginia or North Carolina."
Schnapper said that if anyone should be upset, it's ACORN.
"The victims of this are the people who paid these workers $8 an hour to go out and find legitimate voters, and ... they didn't get their $8 worth; they put down phony names," Schnapper said.
Schnapper said he's worked on Republican and Democratic campaigns and has paid people to hand out leaflets or register voters. He said some of the workers do their jobs and some don't.
ACORN said it has registered well more than 1 million voters, most of them Democrats. Though the group is under investigation in a number of swing states, such as Ohio and Nevada, amid accusations that it turned in fake voter registration cards, Schnapper said there's no evidence that any worker intended to commit voter fraud and actually take those names, produce phony identification and vote on Election Day.
Threats of criminal prosecution may scare some groups into closing voter registration drives, according to Schnapper. It could scare actual voters away from the polls as well, he said, "and that really does affect the outcomes of the election."
A report from the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School supports his claim. Researchers reviewed voter fraud claims across the country and found that most were caused by technical glitches, clerical errors or mistakes made by voters. One other finding: A person is more likely to be struck by lightning than to impersonate another voter at the polls.
ACORN has recently released a video on the Internet called "Fight Back: The Truth About ACORN." It uses a mix of interviews and video to fight what the group calls Republican efforts to suppress voter turnout. advertisement
CNN asked Clifton Mitchell whether he and his team, at any point, got together to try to rig the election.
"When I did it, when my team did it, it wasn't to steal any election," Mitchell said. "They're just trying to keep a job. But understand, I blame myself. I can only blame myself.
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I've got to tell you, I've changed my mind and I'm 100% behind Osama Obama's "Share the Wealth Plan", especially if you guys are going to share your wealth with me!!! Today was a perfect example. They have a socialist program here in Ohio called the weatherization program. The government was at one of my rental houses today to dramatically improve the energy efficiency of my rental property - at the taxpayer's expense. They blew 12 inches of insulation in the attic, will be blowing insulation in the walls, put some GREAT weatherstripping around the doors, wrapped an insulation blanket around the water heater, are wrapping pipe insulation around all pipes in the basement, and much more. Thank you Bdgee. Thank you Glass. Thank all you socialists for paying for that for me. I am grateful. In fact, I liked it so much, that I went to the government office where the program is administered and picked up applications that all my tenants can fill out. They only had 6 copies of the application, but I don't mind springing for the copying costs to make DOZENS of copies!!! If they'll do all my units, it will probably be in the six figures that you'll be spending to improve MY PROPERTIES!!! THANK YOU! I love socialism!
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No, I had to sign a contract that I wouldn't raise rents (due to the improvements) for a year. However, I can still raise rents for any other reason! That's the socialist way!!!
I've got to admit that I was all wrong about this socialist thing. I believed all the right-wing talk about taking from the rich to give to the poor. However, what I didn't understand is that socialism is about taking from others and giving it to ME!!! What's not to like?
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It's a government stipulation to the improvements. By the way, I'm not making out like a bandit - I'm "sharing your wealth". Thank you!
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quote:Originally posted by Propertymanager: It's a government stipulation to the improvements. By the way, I'm not making out like a bandit - I'm "sharing your wealth". Thank you!
actually you are a bandit. self admitted even
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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quote:Originally posted by Propertymanager: I've got to tell you, I've changed my mind and I'm 100% behind Osama Obama's "Share the Wealth Plan", especially if you guys are going to share your wealth with me!!! Today was a perfect example. They have a socialist program here in Ohio called the weatherization program. The government was at one of my rental houses today to dramatically improve the energy efficiency of my rental property - at the taxpayer's expense. They blew 12 inches of insulation in the attic, will be blowing insulation in the walls, put some GREAT weatherstripping around the doors, wrapped an insulation blanket around the water heater, are wrapping pipe insulation around all pipes in the basement, and much more. Thank you Bdgee. Thank you Glass. Thank all you socialists for paying for that for me. I am grateful. In fact, I liked it so much, that I went to the government office where the program is administered and picked up applications that all my tenants can fill out. They only had 6 copies of the application, but I don't mind springing for the copying costs to make DOZENS of copies!!! If they'll do all my units, it will probably be in the six figures that you'll be spending to improve MY PROPERTIES!!! THANK YOU! I love socialism!
Actually?
It's called responsibility, and such programs as you describe were outlined years ago in a Mitchell Energy Prize (ya, big oil) won by Hunter and Amory Lovins. Their model was for utilities to make more money by weatherizing client homes via low-cost loans, as opposed to building new plants fired by end-game technologies.
So, if the utilities are too cheapskate, scared, Republican or whatever to do it, then, ya, government has to step in. Remember "by the people, for the people" ?
By the way...you're welcome.
Go buy a million more properties, and get them all upgraded.
-------------------- Nashoba Holba Chepulechi Adventures in microcapitalism...
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He may. Sounds like he went to the Leona Hemsley school of property ownership. Buy low do nothing unless you get a handout and collect the rent.
quote:Originally posted by Propertymanager: No, I don't have the juice for a million more properties, but if you share your wealth with me, I can do it!
so basically you got your own lil corner carved out and you don't care what happens as long as your lil corner *seems* to be safe.
Bite me, you wimp...
-------------------- Nashoba Holba Chepulechi Adventures in microcapitalism...
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Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read " Vote Obama, I need the money." I laughed.
Once in the restaurant my server had on a "Obama 08" tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference--just imagine the coincidence.
When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.
I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.
At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.
I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application (ask the waiter) OR IS IT.........REDISTRIBUTION OF SOMEONE ELSE'S WEALTH IS A GREAT IDEA..............or just a fools game !!
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That's not nice Tex! You should be a cheerful giver. Those on the left have been promoting socialism and now that it's here, you don't seem to be as happy as you should. You should be happy that our socialist government is taking from you and giving to me. I'm happy!
quote:i think they are running out of our wealth to share, they gave it all to Wall St.
You've got to give til it hurts Glass. Please work harder so that you'll have more to give to our benevolent government. They're sharing the wealth and I want more of yours!
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quote:Originally posted by a surfer: Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read " Vote Obama, I need the money." I laughed.
Once in the restaurant my server had on a "Obama 08" tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference--just imagine the coincidence.
When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.
I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.
At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.
I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application (ask the waiter) OR IS IT.........REDISTRIBUTION OF SOMEONE ELSE'S WEALTH IS A GREAT IDEA..............or just a fools game !!
Nice.
How easily the foolish are led, or miss led.
-------------------- All post are my opinion. Do your own DD. Who's clicking your buy/sell button!?
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quote:Originally posted by Propertymanager: That's not nice Tex! You should be a cheerful giver. Those on the left have been promoting socialism and now that it's here, you don't seem to be as happy as you should. You should be happy that our socialist government is taking from you and giving to me. I'm happy!
quote:i think they are running out of our wealth to share, they gave it all to Wall St.
You've got to give til it hurts Glass. Please work harder so that you'll have more to give to our benevolent government. They're sharing the wealth and I want more of yours!
is your head so far up your azz that you can't recognise the people who took the money already are REPUBLICANS?
you remind me of people who tell "i slept with your momma" jokes...
the jokes on you, i was hatched
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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quote:Originally posted by a surfer: At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.
Surfer, surfer....
You only got it half right. You are wealthier than both so you should have given them BOTH $10. LOL Typical republican...thinking you belong outside the system.
PM, you don't pay the energy costs in your rentals. Your tenants see a reduction in their bills which benefits them. Your energy company sees a slack in consumption which means they don't have to build a new plant. Your local government is not asked to help the company pay for the new plant which saves everybody.
See how the savings are passed around? You may own the physical insulation but everybody profits. That's called community service.
-------------------- No longer eligible for government service due to lack of tax issues.
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If I was a waiter I wouldn't let anyone know my voting preference. that is unless the customer gave it away who they liked and then I would agree with them (and lie if needed) for bigger tips.
i waited on tables for about 6 months one time in the late 70's. i was working two jobs, one at a hospital as blood drawer and 2 shifts a week waiting.
i never paid taxes on tips. i think they take deductions out automatically now cuz of people like me. which at the time was every waiter/waitress in the US...
as for the story? in the real world? they are taking the money and giving it to the bank that finaced the restaurant owner..
and i'm amused at the nursery rhyme quality of the stories the GOP tells these days..
when they get back to at least high school level literature? i'll be voting Republican again...
this year? i'm voting against everybody already in office.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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surfer isn't interested in any service that isn't himself.
He's like PM and SF, he imagines four things, that he belongs in the day and world of the Robber Barons; if he were there, he would would be the biggest of them all; that theirs was a philosophy that was a credit to humanity, and the ensuing fame and enornous wealth would afford him universal admiration and infinite love and pure happiness.
Like them (and far too many others), he refuses to consider anything else possible. His is in a world where Jay Gould and Henry Clay Frick are idolized and thought to have done more for the advancement human society than David Livingstone or John Lock or Isaac Newton, because they weren't terribly rich.
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Palin is the biggest Socialist in the campaign, talk about redistributing wealth:
She pledged that under their administration, parents of children with special needs would be able to send their children to the public or private school of their choice, “This process should be uncomplicated, quick, and effective — because early education can make all the difference and no barriers of bureaucracy should stand in the way of serving children with special needs.”
The McCain administration would direct the Department of Education to implement their policy and make federal funds full portable, “We’ll make explicit that when state funds are portable, that federal funds are fully portable. And we’re going to make sure parents have choices and children receive the education that they desire and that they deserve for their children.”
She also promised to fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which is estimated at 26 billion dollars annually compared to the current level of 10.9 billion dollars, according to their plan. Their policy states that they will use a “phased–in increase of 3 billion annually in order to reach the full funding in five years.”
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I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.
I was thinking about ya today. I just got home from the liquor store...
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i'm voting against everybody already in office.
So then, will you not be visiting the polls this year?
(as a faint chant begins in the background. Nader, Nader)
I got a kick out of this:
When asked by MSNBC's Tim Russert about the possibility of preventing a Democratic victory in 2008, Nader responded, "Not a chance. If the Democrats can’t landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, and emerge in a different form."
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Christian right intensifies attacks on Obama By ERIC GORSKI and RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writers Eric Gorski And Rachel Zoll, Ap Religion Writers 19 mins ago
Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts.
All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation called "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," produced by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family Action.
The imagined look into the future is part of an escalation in rhetoric from Christian right activists who are trying to paint Obama in the worst possible terms as the campaign heads into the final stretch and polls show the Democrat ahead.
Although hard-edge attacks are common late in campaigns, the tenor of the strikes against Obama illustrate just how worried conservative Christian activists are about what should happen to their causes and influence if Democrats seize control of both Congress and the White House.
"It looks like, walks like, talks like and smells like desperation to me," said the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston, an Obama supporter who backed President Bush in the past two elections. The Methodist pastor called the 2012 letter "false and ridiculous." He said it showed that some Christian conservative leaders fear that Obama's faith-based appeals to voters are working.
Like other political advocacy groups, Christian right groups often raise worries about an election's consequences to mobilize voters. In the early 1980s, for example, direct mail from the Moral Majority warned that Congress would turn a blind eye to "smut peddlers" dangling pornography to children.
"Everyone uses fear in the last part of a campaign, but evangelicals are especially theologically prone to those sorts of arguments," said Clyde Wilcox, a Georgetown University political scientist. "There's a long tradition of predicting doom and gloom."
But the tone this election year is sharper than usual and the volume has turned up as Nov. 4 nears.
Steve Strang, publisher of Charisma magazine, a Pentecostal publication, titled one of his recent weekly e-mails to readers, "Life As We Know It Will End If Obama is Elected."
Strang said gay rights and abortion rights would be strengthened in an Obama administration, taxes would rise and "people who hate Christianity will be emboldened to attack our freedoms."
Separately, a group called the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission has posted a series of videos on its site and on YouTube called "7 Reasons Barack Obama is not a Christian."
The commission accuses Obama of "subtle diabolical deceit" in saying he is Christian, while he believes that people can be saved through other faiths.
But among the strongest pieces this year is Focus on the Family Action's letter which has been posted on the group's Web site and making the e-mail rounds. Signed by "A Christian from 2012," it claims a series of events could logically happen based on the group's interpretation of Obama's record, Democratic Party positions, recent court rulings and other trends.
Among the claims:
• A 6-3 liberal majority Supreme Court that results in rulings like one making gay marriage the law of the land and another forcing the Boy Scouts to "hire homosexual scoutmasters and allow them to sleep in tents with young boys." (In the imagined scenario, The Boy Scouts choose to disband rather than obey).
• A series of domestic and international disasters based on Obama's "reluctance to send troops overseas." That includes terrorist attacks on U.S. soil that kill hundreds, Russia occupying the Baltic states and Eastern European countries including Poland and the Czech Republic, and al-Qaida overwhelming Iraq.
• Nationalized health care with long lines for surgery and no access to hospitals for people over 80.
The goal was to "articulate the big picture," said Carrie Gordon Earll, senior director of public policy for Focus on the Family Action. "If it is a doomsday picture, then it's a realistic picture," she said.
Obama favors abortion rights and supports civil unions for same-sex couples, but says states should make their own decisions about marriage. He said he would intensify diplomatic pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions and add troops in Afghanistan.
On taxes, Obama has proposed an increase on the 5 percent of taxpayers who make more than $250,000 a year and advocates cuts for those who make less. His health care plan calls for the government to subsidize coverage for millions of Americans who otherwise couldn't afford it.
One of the clear targets of this latest conservative Christian push against the Democrat is younger evangelicals who might be considering him. The letter posits that young evangelicals provide the margin that let Obama defeat John McCain. But Margaret Feinberg, a Denver-area evangelical author, predicted failure.
"Young evangelicals are tired — like most people at this point in the election — and rhetoric which is fear-based, strong-arms the listener, and states opinion as fact will only polarize rather than further the informed, balanced discussion that younger voters are hungry for," she said.
In an interview, Strang said there are fewer state ballot measures to motivate conservative voters this election year and that the financial meltdown is distracting some voters from the abortion issue. But he said a last-minute push by conservative Christians in 2004 was key to Bush's re-election and predicted they could play the same role in 2008.
Kim Conger, a political scientist at Iowa State University, said a late push for evangelical voters did help Bush in 2004, "but it is a very different thing than getting people excited about John McCain," even with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential pick.
Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values, said the dynamics were quite different in 2004, when conservative Christians spent some energy calling Democrat John Kerry a flip-flopper but were mostly motivated by enthusiasm for George W. Bush.
Now, there is less excitement about McCain than fear of an Obama presidency, Burress said.
"This reminds me of when I was a school kid, when I had to go out in the hall and bury my head in my hands because of the atom bomb," he said.
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