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Nevada Vote Fraud Charges for ACORN

By Matthew Vadum on 5.4.09 @ 5:38PM

The Las Vegas Sun is reporting that voter registration fraud charges have been laid against the left-wing community activist group ACORN.

From reading the article I am not yet convinced that the charges were laid against ACORN, as opposed to individuals in the employment of ACORN. As everybody in the news business knows all too well, early news reports sometimes get the details wrong. We'll see.

In any event, tThe article says

Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller announced Monday that voter registration fraud charges have been filed against an organization that works with low-income people and two of its employees in its Las Vegas office.

The complaint includes 26 counts of voter fraud and 13 counts for compensating those registering voters, both felonies.

The Association of Community Organization for Reform Now, Inc., also known as ACORN, operated a Las Vegas office that helped register low-income voters last year.

Throughout 2008, ACORN employed canvassers to register people to vote in Nevada, the complaint said. ACORN paid the canvassers between $8 and $9 an hour, but made continued employment and continued compensation based on the canvasser registering 20 voters per shift. Those who failed to sign up 20 voters per shift were terminated, the complaint said.

From July 27 through Oct. 2 ACORN also provided additional compensation under a bonus program called "Blackjack" or "21+" that was based on the total number of voters a person registered.

A canvasser who brought in 21 or more completed voter registration forms per shift would be paid a bonus of $5.

The Blackjack program was created by employee Christopher Edwards, field director for the Las Vegas office. ACORN timesheets indicate that corporate officers of ACORN were aware of the Blackjack bonus program and failed to take immediate action to stop it. [...]

Developing...

Updated later the same day: Yes indeed ACORN itself has been charged, as commenter MR notes below. Voter registration fraud charges were laid in Clark County, Nevada, against the Association of Community Organization [sic] for Reform Now Inc., and ACORN employees Christopher Howell Edwards and Amy Adele Busefink. A copy of the 18-page criminal complaint may be viewed as a PDF file here.