{"id":3404,"date":"2008-06-26T10:41:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-26T16:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/06\/gop-warns-against-registering-to-vote-with-acorn\/"},"modified":"2008-06-26T10:41:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-26T16:41:00","slug":"gop-warns-against-registering-to-vote-with-acorn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/06\/gop-warns-against-registering-to-vote-with-acorn\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP warns against registering to vote with ACORN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The state <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gopnm.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Republican Party<\/a> is cautioning against registering to vote with workers employed by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.acorn.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">ACORN<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cVoters who would like to register to vote would be better served by contacting their county or state Republican or Democratic parties or their county clerk,\u201d Adam Feldman, the state GOP executive director, said in a news release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The GOP joins the Do\u00f1a Ana County Bureau of Elections in expressing concern about the non-profit group, which has had two problems in the county in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the county warned that it had received <a href=\"http:\/\/haussamen.blogspot.com\/2008\/06\/county-warns-of-misleading-registration.html\">complaints about misleading voter-registration activities<\/a> by ACORN employees, a charge ACORN denied. And about a week ago, 90 completed voter-registration applications were <a href=\"http:\/\/haussamen.blogspot.com\/2008\/06\/completed-voter-registration-forms.html\">stolen from ACORN\u2019s Las Cruces office<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"\">This year, the group has registered more than 33,000 voters statewide, including 7,000 in <st1:place st=\"on\"><st1:placename st=\"on\">Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> <st1:placename st=\"on\">Ana<\/st1:placename> <st1:placename st=\"on\">County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Feldman said registering with a group \u201cthat has such a controversial track record of illegal registration activity is simply not a form of registration in which New Mexico voters can have confidence.\u201d ACORN has defended its work and pointed to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prospect.org\/cs\/articles?article=the_republican_war_on_voting\" target=\"_blank\">an article that attempts to debunk allegations<\/a> against the group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">But the controversies have been frequent. In 2004, an ACORN employee registered two teenage boys to vote in <st1:city st=\"on\">Albuquerque<\/st1:city>, and the leader of ACORN in <st1:state st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>, Matthew Henderson, pleaded the fifth when asked about the group\u2019s handling of voter-registration forms, according to the GOP release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">In addition, the release stated, completed and fraudulent forms were found in an <st1:city st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Albuquerque<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> home during a police drug-bust at the home of a foreign national who worked for ACORN that year. And an Albuquerque Republican who registered to vote with ACORN that year wasn\u2019t on the voter list when she tried to vote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">All claims made in the GOP release were backed up with citations from articles published in the Albuquerque Journal and Tribune.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The group has also had problems across the nation. In 2006, a former ACORN worker in <st1:state st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Missouri<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> said he was fired because, in addition to registering voters, he would not knock on doors for a Democratic senatorial candidate, according to the state GOP. And last year felony charges were filed against seven employees and supervisors of ACORN in the state of <st1:state st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Washington<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>. Three pleaded guilty to fraudulently filling out 1,800 voter registration forms in 2006.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">In urging people to register to vote through their county clerk\u2019s office or the major parties, the GOP provided links to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sos.state.nm.us\/sos-CClerk.html\" target=\"_blank\">a listing of county clerks\u2019 offices<\/a>, the state <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gopnm.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">GOP Web site<\/a> and the state <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmdemocrats.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Democratic Party Web site<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The state Republican Party is cautioning against registering to vote with workers employed by ACORN. \u201cVoters who would like to register to vote would be better served by contacting their county or state Republican or Democratic parties or their county clerk,\u201d Adam Feldman, the state GOP executive director, said in a news release. The GOP [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}