As Democrats nationwide try to make the climb to a
filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate by pursuing recounts, an
outspoken ACORN ally presides over the tallying of votes in the
still-unresolved Minnesota Senate race.
The fact that Mark Ritchie, a Democrat and former community
organizer, largely controls the electoral process in the Land of
10,000 Lakes may be important.
That’s because at press time incumbent Republican Norm Coleman
led Democrat Al Franken by just 341 votes and the Democrats
controlled 57 seats in the Senate, compared to the Republicans’
40. The Senate races in Alaska and Georgia also have yet to be
resolved, though in both the Republicans are leading and are
expected to win in the end.
The Minnesota seat is the only one that Democrats could try to
steal. Every seat closer to 60 gives President-elect Barack Obama
and Democratic lawmakers an opportunity to permanently alter
America’s political, economic, and cultural landscape.
Both Franken and Obama, by the way, were endorsed by ACORN Votes,
ACORN’s federal political action committee.
Minnesota’s secretary of state isn’t a Democrat by happenstance.
Ritchie, who defeated two-term incumbent Republican Mary
Kiffmeyer in 2006, received an endorsement and financial
assistance for his run from a below-the-radar non-federal “527”
group called the Secretary of State Project. The entity can
accept unlimited financial contributions and doesn’t have to
disclose them publicly until well after the election.
The founders of the Secretary of State Project, which claims to
advance “election protection” but only backs Democrats,
religiously believe that right-leaning secretaries of state
helped the GOP steal the presidential elections in Florida in
2000 (Katherine Harris) and in Ohio in 2004 (Ken Blackwell).
The secretary of state candidates the group endorses sing the
same familiar song about electoral integrity issues: Voter fraud
is largely a myth, vote suppression is used widely by
Republicans, cleansing the dead and fictional characters from
voter rolls should be avoided until embarrassing media reports
emerge, and anyone who demands that a voter produce photo
identification before pulling the lever is a racist,
democracy-hating Fascist.
The group was co-founded in July 2006 by James Rucker, formerly
director of grassroots mobilization for MoveOn.org Political
Action and Moveon.org Civic Action. “Any serious commitment to
wrestling control of the country from the Republican Party must
include removing their political operatives from deciding who can
vote and whose votes will count,” said another co-founder, Becky
Bond, to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2006.
Its website claims, “A modest political investment in electing
clean candidates to critical Secretary of State offices is an
efficient way to protect the election.” Indeed. Political
observers know that a relatively small amount of money can help
swing a little-watched race for a state office few people
understand or care about.
The strategic targeting of the SoS Project yielded impressive
results this year and in 2006.
Days ago, SoS Project-backed Democrats Linda McCulloch (Montana),
Natalie Tennant (West Virginia), Robin Carnahan (Missouri), and
Kate Brown (Oregon) won their races. Only Carnahan was an
incumbent. The Center for Public Integrity reported two months
ago that the group had thus far raised a mere $280,000 for the
2008 election cycle.
Talk about return on investment!
In 2006, along with Minnesota’s Ritchie, SoS Project-endorsed
Jennifer Brunner (Ohio), who last month defied federal law by
refusing to take steps to verify 200,000 questionable voter
registrations, trounced her opponent, 55% to 41%. Democrats
supported by the group also won that year in New Mexico, Nevada,
and Iowa. The group claims it spent about $500,000 in that
election cycle.
In the election on Tuesday, Ritchie said his office “received no
reports whatsoever of fraudulent voting occurring,” but most news
reports omitted the fact that a conservative watchdog group
called Minnesota Majority repeatedly urged Ritchie to clean up
the state’s voter data. The group urged “a thorough review and
verification of all voter registration records.”
Minnesota Majority claimed last month that there were thousands
of irregularities in voter lists, including 261,000 duplicative
registrations and 63,000 voters listing an address that the post
office reported was “non-deliverable.”
Ritchie was dismissive.
“There is a new level of desperateness, a new level of intensity
to the process that’s saying, ‘This can’t be right. There must be
all these people illegally voting,’” Ritchie told Minnesota
Public Radio Nov. 3. “It’s to create a story to explain a
political climate. It’s to create a cloud over an election so
people don’t accept the outcome.”
While running for office two years ago, Ritchie recited well-worn
liberal talking points on the electoral process. “The only means
we have of defending ourselves is the vote, and if you want to
throw out or hold accountable leaders who are not doing what you
want around [Hurricane] Katrina, or the Iraq war, the vote is
your only mechanism. […] When you begin to perceive that your
vote is being manipulated, it’s a sign of worry,” he said.
So far in the Coleman versus Franken vote-tallying process
Ritchie seems even-handed. He perhaps inadvertently likened the
upcoming official recount to a funeral service that benefits the
living because it forces them to accept the death of a loved one.
“Recounts are for really the loser to understand and see and then
believe that they in fact did not win the election and for their
supporters to come to the same conclusion,” he said.
Most media reports also leave out the fact that Ritchie has
extensive ties to the controversial in-your-face direct action
group, ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform
Now), whose employees have been implicated in electoral fraud
time and time again.
In 2006, the Minnesota ACORN Political Action Committee endorsed
Ritchie and donated to his campaign. According to the Minnesota
Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, contributors to
Ritchie’s campaign included liberal philanthropists George Soros,
Drummond Pike, and Deborah Rappaport, along with veteran
community organizer Heather Booth, a Saul Alinsky disciple who
co-founded the Midwest Academy, a radical ACORN clone. One
article on Ritchie’s 2006 campaign website brags about the fine
work ACORN did in Florida to pass a constitutional amendment to
raise that state’s minimum wage.
It was revealed during a panel discussion at the Democratic
Party’s convention in Denver this summer that the Democracy
Alliance, a financial clearinghouse created by Soros and
insurance magnate Peter B. Lewis, approved the Secretary of State
Project as a grantee. The Democracy Alliance aspires to create a
permanent political infrastructure of nonprofits, think tanks,
media outlets, leadership schools, and activist groups-a kind of
“vast left-wing conspiracy” to compete with the conservative
movement. It has brokered more than $100 million in grants to
liberal nonprofits including ACORN. The aforementioned Pike and
Rappaport, who gave money to Ritchie’s campaign, are members of
the Democracy Alliance.
According to IRS 8872 disclosure forms, the Secretary of State
Project received donations from Democracy Alliance members
including Soros, Rob Stein, Gail Furman, and Susie Tompkins
Buell.
Ritchie said the recount won’t get underway until the State
Canvassing Board meets Nov. 18 to certify the U.S. Senate
election results. Under state law, the five-member board will
consist of Ritchie, two state district court judges he appoints
to it, and two state supreme court justices.
As the politically astute Joseph Stalin once remarked, “The
people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count
the votes decide everything.”
