By Matthew Vadum on 10.8.09 @ 6:08AM
Is it ACORN vote fraud if he voted once as a man and once
as a woman?
The activist group ACORN, which has long worked with
criminals as it preys on the weak and the troubled, is on the
verge of yet another public relations catastrophe.
That's because a cross-dressing Ohio male escort whom ACORN
registered multiple times to vote was convicted of full-fledged
vote fraud in addition to the lesser crime of voter registration
fraud. A spokesman for Cleveland prosecutor Bill Mason confirmed
yesterday that a local investigation of ACORN remains wide
open.
The conviction of
Darnell Nash, apparently known by several aliases including
Serina "Sexy Slay" Gibbs, is hugely significant for several
reasons, not least of which is the fact that ACORN has long
maintained that vote fraud, as opposed to the lesser crime of
voter registration fraud, essentially
never happens.
ACORN's Project Vote affiliate has tried to get rid of the
problem of vote fraud by defining it out of existence. Lorraine
C. Minnite, a political science professor at Columbia
University's Barnard College,
argues in an ACORN/Project Vote report called "The Politics
of Voter Fraud" that "[t]he claim that voter fraud threatens the
integrity of American elections is itself a fraud." Minnite is
also a senior fellow at the liberal think tank
Demos.
While ACORN has not yet been charged in Cuyahoga County,
Ohio, the fact that an individual voter registered by ACORN has
been convicted of actually casting a fraudulent ballot appears to
be a historic first for the embattled radical advocacy
group.
But in the Nash case, the question arises: Who conned whom?
Or were both Nash and ACORN to blame?
Nash, the self-proclaimed "Queen of Cleveland Gender
Benders," claimed to make $150 an hour turning tricks, according
to the
New York Post. Describing Nash, who
flashed a TV reporter on camera while dressed as a
woman, as a "flamboyant con artist," the newspaper reported last
October that Nash was also "busted for scamming local college
students in a fake loan-program scheme that gave him access to
the kids' checking accounts." It is unclear if the loan fraud
allegations were acted on further by authorities.
Mason spokesman Ryan Miday said in an interview last night
that ACORN remains on the prosecutorial radar screen. "We
investigated the activities involving ACORN and at this
point we have found no criminal conduct by
ACORN." [Emphasis added.]
I pressed Miday, whose boss is an elected Democrat, to
elaborate and he offered what sounded like a clarion call to
whistle blowers.
"Our file remains open, meaning that we're not closing the
case," he said. "If we receive more information or evidence
pertaining to ACORN's involvement we will pursue it."
Miday explained that Nash was registered nine times to vote
with the assistance of what the spokesman called "ACORN outreach
workers." Nash repeatedly used different names and different
addresses to register to vote. He was
indicted by a grand jury earlier this year.
Nash cast a fraudulent ballot at the local board of
elections office, Miday said.
Nash entered a guilty plea to one count of casting a
fraudulent ballot and to several counts of false registration on
August 5. On August 19 he was sentenced to six months
imprisonment by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret
Russo.
Miday said that Nash, who is in custody in a facility for
male prisoners, filed for a petition for early "judicial release" on Oct.
1. Mason entered his opposition to the petition yesterday, the
spokesman said.
The conviction of Nash in August was missed by the national
media and by this now red-faced reporter.
Miday said he has been fielding a lot of calls from the
media recently since undercover sting videos surfaced last month
on BigGovernment.com. The
videos, which led to a massive revival of public interest in
ACORN, showed ACORN employees advising a couple pretending to be
a pimp and prostitute on how to evade various laws.
ACORN's Ohio chapter had bad luck with prostitutes last
year.
An Ohio woman named
Shari Bell who was allegedly a crack cocaine user,
prostitute, and ACORN worker, was arrested on drug and
prostitution charges in October. Bell was arrested by Cincinnati
police after she allegedly offered an undercover cop sex for
money. Police found a crack pipe in the pocket of her
coat.
Meanwhile, the noose continues to tighten around ACORN's
tax-subsidized neck.
As I write, I just learned of a draft legislative amendment
from the office of Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), one of ACORN's
few remaining steadfast friends in the U.S. Senate. This
amendment number 2647 to H.R. 2847, the fiscal 2010 spending
bill for the Commerce Department, directs the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) to "conduct a review and audit of
Federal funds awarded to the Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now…or any subsidiary or affiliate of
ACORN."
According to the amendment, the GAO would determine
"whether any Federal funds were misused and, if so, the total
amount of Federal funds involved and how such funds were misused;
what steps, if any, have been taken to recover any Federal funds
that were misused; what steps should be taken to prevent the
misuse of any Federal funds; and whether all necessary steps have
been taken to prevent the misuse of any Federal funds."
Acting U.S. Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro, who runs
GAO, would have 180 days from the time the legislation is enacted
to report the results of the audit to Congress. As Senate
majority whip, Durbin wouldn't have taken this dramatic step
without the approval of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
(D-Nev.).
Presumably Durbin was acting under orders from the vast
right-wing conspiracy that ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis has
claimed is persecuting her group.
In a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.,
on Tuesday, Lewis claimed the Republican National Committee
"every single day, because we've been inflated as the bogeyman,
raises almost $2 million dollars a day every day."
She claimed "this form of modern day ACORN McCarthyism has
got to stop. Last week, members of Congress were asked, 'Are you
now or have you ever been a member of ACORN?'"
It sounds like a fair question to me.
topics:
ACORN, Voter Fraud
