Commentary: Nevada goes after ACORN in fraud case

When an American Civil Liberties Union representative showed up in Carson last week to oppose legislation (AB82) that would tighten Nevada voter registration requirements, he convinced me that the Legislature should approve the new rules in the wake of charges that ACORN, the Association of Community Organizatio-

ns for Reform Now, committed voter registration fraud in Nevada last year.

With partisan political activity at a fever pitch in Washington, it was refreshing when a pair of Nevada Democrats, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller, accused ACORN of perpetrating registration fraud in our state.

According to charges filed by Cortez Masto, ACORN broke state law by adopting registration quotas, which encouraged fraud, and illegally requiring paid canvassers to meet quotas in order to keep their jobs, resulting in thousands of "garbage" registrations, including Disney characters and the Dallas Cowboys' starting lineup.

After reviewing more than 90,000 voter registration forms submitted by ACORN, Clark County Voter Registrar Larry Lomax determined that nearly half (48 percent) of those forms were "clearly fraudulent." Although a local attorney for ACORN called the allegations "patently false," she lacks credibility because her organization was already under scrutiny by federal and state investigators.

"It was the policy of ACORN to terminate ... canvassers who failed to obtain 20 (registration forms) per day," said an investigator from the AG's office.

"This is a case of voter registration fraud," said Secretary of State Miller. "(But) there's absolutely no evidence that there was any voter fraud in the last election."

I hope he's right but, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal warned, "Let's not pretend to have all fallen off the same turnip truck." In other words, ACORN community organizers thought they could take advantage of the unsophisticated rubes in our state.

"If ACORN ... failed to get any unqualified electors to the polls to cast illegal ballots, it wasn't for lack of trying," the Review-Journal added.

Another worrisome aspect of this case is that President Obama was an ACORN legal adviser before he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Illinois, and his campaign committee last year paid ACORN $832,000 for dubious get-out-the-vote efforts in key primary states, including Nevada.

Nevada isn't alone in this battle because similar charges have been filed against ACORN in Pennsylvania and Wash-

ington State. My message to our attorney general is simple and straightforward: Prosecute those who think they can pull the wool over the eyes of Nevada voters and election officials. Go get 'em!

- Guy W. Farmer, of Carson City, has been a Nevada voter since 1962.