With so much at stake, election watchdog groups are worried that Tuesday's special Senate election in Massachusetts is ripe for political shenanigans.

Election Experts Issue 'Orange Alert' for Massachusetts Special Election

The Washington Times is troubled by the Obama Justice Department's attempt to cover up obvious voter intimidation on the part of the Black Panthers.

From a Times' editorial:

Could it be that President Obama's legal team is imploding due to a voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party? So many new developments regarding the Black Panther case occurred in the latter half of last week that it is hard keeping up with them all. But none of them look good for the Obama administration or for Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s Justice Department.

The case involves paramilitary-garbed Panthers caught on videotape (which was backed by copious testimony) engaged in what observers say were intimidating and racially charged activities outside a Philadelphia polling booth on presidential Election Day in 2008. Even though a judge was ready to enter a default judgment against the Black Panthers, based on a case brought by career attorneys at the Justice Department, the Obama administration suddenly decided last spring to drop three of the four cases and punish the final one with an incredibly weak injunction.

Read the full editorial, "Justice thwarts Black Panther subpoenas," at the newspaper's Web site.

Aristotle International, a leading non-partisan provider of political technology and data, has released its annual "Deadwood" voter registration compilation, showing 16,331,707, or 8.9%, of all registered voters are no longer among the living but still eligible to vote.

This would help explain some of the current elected officials we have.

Aristotle International says the number of voters on its "Deadwood" rolls is up 3 percent over the estimate released in October 2008.

Way to go ACORN!

"Deadwood on voter rolls complicates the electoral process and can cause problems like fraud and vote miscounts. It always creates a perception of low voter turnout," said John Aristotle Phillips, CEO of Aristotle. "It gets down to this: by depressing turnout, dead voters make the rest of us look bad."

Read more at the link below:

Just in Time for Halloween: 'Deadwood' on Registered Voter Rolls

The mainstream media covered up that fact that the Obama administration funneled millions of dollars into ACORN as part of the February "stimulus" bill. Is it payback for helping Obama win last November's election despite widespread allegations of voter fraud on the part of the left-wing activist group? To borrow a phrase from Obama's former spiritual leader, the chickens are coming home to roost.

From an article by Walter F. Roche Jr. in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

A worker for a grassroots organization was so eager to fulfill a voter registration quota during the presidential campaign that she filed a fraudulent application in the name of a county elections employee, but got the Social Security number wrong, prosecutors said Thursday.

In all, seven canvassers for ACORN in Allegheny County are accused of forging 51 signatures and violating election laws in connection with last year's registration efforts, said District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr.

Zappala said a six-month investigation by county police and the Pittsburgh FBI office found clear evidence of an illegal quota system in use by ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The investigation continues, and the arrests mark the end of only one phase, he said.

"We're comfortable from the evidence that we can show there was a quota system," Zappala said. "These people all had an association with ACORN."

Read the full story at the newspaper's Web site.

The Obama Administration is turning to ACORN, the radical group responsible for injecting voter fraud into the 2008 election, to help out with conducting the 2010 Census.

What can possibly go wrong?

Plenty, according to Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Rob Gleason, who issued the following statement:

"ACORN's actions last year certainly did little to earn the public's trust and I am sure that most Americans are concerned about this group's ability to deliver an accurate count," Gleason said. "News first broke that the President wanted to move the U.S. census into the White House, now he is enlisting the help of ACORN, a group that is widely believed to be consistently breaking the law. President Obama is trying to interject politics into the 2010 U.S. census, hoping to increase the reach of his Party throughout the country. It will be tough to trust ACORN's counts or any data they submit.

"With the economy in decline it is sad to see that the President is so concerned about the 2010 census. I also find it even more troubling that the Census Bureau wouldn't be willing to offer these jobs to the many hard-working men and women already looking for a job, rather than do political favors for groups that helped elect our current president."

Read more about the controversy, read "Obama blamed for ACORN's role in census" by Mike Wereschagin, in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Also check out this post at NetRightNation.com

William Warren, writing at GetLiberty.org, says the Obama administration is attempting to pull off one of the most nefarious power grabs since the Watergate era.

Obama is moving the Census Bureau out of the Commerce Department and into control of the White House in a blatant attempt to politicize the counting of Americans.

Why should you be concerned? Because the Democrats, who helped carry out the biggest voter fraud campaign in U.S. history in the November 2008 election, will now attempt to redraw Congressional districts to ensure a permanent Democratic Party majority.

From Warren's column:

If controlling the executive branch and maintaining a majority in both houses of Congress was not already enough power, President Obama is now poised to expand his sphere of authority to engulf the Census Bureau as well.

According to a recent article in CQ Politics, President Obama’s administration will be keeping the as-yet-unnamed director of the Census Bureau on a tight leash and under a watchful eye. Adding an extra layer of significance to this is the fact that the next national head-counting—performed every 10 years—is scheduled for 2010.

As the article explains, a senior White House official stated last Thursday that the director will "work closely with" the Obama administration—rather than reporting solely to the Commerce Secretary.

This story comes on the heels of an even more troubling report the previous day that the Census Bureau director would "report directly to" the Obama administration and completely bypass the Commerce Secretary. Apparently, the White House officials toned down the rhetoric after Republicans "accused the White House of attempting to gain advantage in the politically delicate process of counting Americans and of violating the law by circumventing the Commerce secretary."

Warren cautions about allowing the Obama power-grab to succeed.

There is no question that the Census process should be firmly off-limits to politics. The firewall of separation that has guarded the delicate head-counting process from potential corruption must not be breached at this time.

Barack Obama has promised transparency time and time again. Allowing him and Rahm Emanuel to dictate the activities of the Census Bureau would equate to nothing less than a veiled totalitarian power-grab and be yet another step away from the "hope and change" the Obama campaign so misleadingly promised the American people.

Read the full column, "Resisting the Politicization of the National Census," at GetLiberty.org

A suburban-Philadelphia man hired by the controversial pro-Obama group ACORN has pleaded guilty to forgery, identity theft and tampering with public records charges involving bogus voter registrations.

From The Delaware County Daily Times:

The charges were filed against 34-year-old Jemar Barksdale as a result of invalid voter registration applications he submitted, according to the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office.

Barksdale, who entered the plea before Common Pleas Judge Patricia H. Jenkins, was sentenced to serve six to 23 months on electronic home monitoring, to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, perform eight hours of community service, to pay court costs and restitution in the amount of $574 to the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN).

Back in October, county District Attorney G. Michael Green said Barksdale had provided 18 fraudulent and 22 completely fictitious voter registration applications to the county voter registration office.

Krista Holub, ACORN Political Operations in Philadelphia, said in a prepared release that ACORN is satisfied with the outcome of the case. Barksdale was an employee for eight days, from late May through early June.

"PA ACORN hired over 1,300 employees across the state and are proud of our hard working canvassers who helped neighbors and friends register to vote."

A new study says at least 1.8 million dead people are registered to vote in the 2008 presidential election.

How many of those dead people vote is unknown ... except maybe to the folks at ACORN.

From an Aristotle International press release:

The study, conducted by Aristotle since 2000, compares government lists of persons who have moved or died to the voter registration lists obtained from state or county elections agencies. This year's data indicates 5.9 percent of all registered voters are what elections experts call "Deadwood." This represents an estimated 1,833,539 dead voters and 8,690,492 who have moved from their registered voter address.

Follow the link below to read more about the study, including a state-by-state breakdown of dead voters.

Trick or Treat Just in Time for Halloween: U.S. Voter Rolls Contain 'Deadwood'

Millions of dollars in questionable or illegal campaing contributions have poured into the Barack Obama Campaign.

It appears Sen. Obama will either buy this election using illegal funds or steal this election with the help of ACORN. Isn't Democracy wonderful?

RNC: Obama Accepting Untraceable Donations

What do you do when law enforcement officials in 14 states are investigating your group for voter registration fraud? Go on the attack, of course, and claim that it's a vast right-wing conspiracy.

The nuts over at ACORN, which has made voter registration fraud an art, are holding screening parties for a new "documentary" about voter suppression.

ACORN is holding house parties in 17 cities around the country, including Philadelphia, to screen its propaganda film.

I guess ACORN would like to take voters' minds off the Nov. 4 election long enough to get Barack Obama elected.

From an ACORN press release:

Recently the McCain-Palin campaign, the Republican party and some sensationalist members of the media, have been on a weeks-long campaign to discredit ACORN over bogus allegations of "voter fraud." This video examines both the skewed media attention and the real story of ACORN's voter registration program. It also aggressively calls attention to the ongoing campaign of suppression, which affects far more voters than anything recently covered by the mainstream media.

ACORN still hasn't come up with an explanation of how it registered Mickey Mouse to vote in Florida or signed up a 7-year-old voter or turned in paperwork for an Ohio man who registered 72 times.

And why won't those pesky FBI agents leave ACORN alone? And that $800,000 Barack Obama gave to ACORN earlier this year has nothing to do with voter registration fraud, either.

To keep up with the latest shenanigans from ACORN, visit the ACORNS DON'T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE blog.

A record-setting 8.73 million Pennsylvanians are registered to vote as of Oct. 20, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.

Of that total, 4.4 million voters registered as Democrats; 3.2 million as Republicans; 458,617 under no affiliation; and 568,065 as "other."

There were 8.36 million registered Pennsylvania voters prior to the 2004 General Election, according to a state press release.

Despite growing reports of voter registration fraud allegations involving the group ACORN, the Rendell administration says it does not anticipate any problems with the Nov. 4 election.

That brought a sharp rebuke from the Pennsylvania Republican Committee, which filed a lawsuit on Friday against the state and ACORN, claiming that ACORN has filed fraudulent voter registration forms.

"The U.S. District Attorney's office is investigating fraudulent voter registrations in Philadelphia and local law enforcement officials and agencies are investigating issues in several other Pennsylvania counties," PA GOP Chairman Robert Gleason said. "Why aren't Governor Rendell and Secretary Cortés questioning the activities of a group that has burdened county election officials with potentially bogus registrations which will prevent legitimate registrations from being cast on Election Day?"

To read the full statement by the PA GOP, visit the party's Web site, http://www.pagop.org

The Pocono Record has an interesting story (and video) on voting irregulatiries in Monrie County. And guess which pro-Obama group is behind it? Yes, it's ACORN again.

From the Pocono Record:

Voter fraud, plaguing much of the United States, has reached Monroe County. Officials point to ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) as one culprit.

"We've had a lot of duplicate, triple registrations. Registrations that just went through in another county then they registered here a week later," said Monroe County Voter Registration Office Director Sara May-Silfee.

Duplicate registrations require the voter registration office to go through the process of verification and notification, which May-Silfee said wastes time on processing honest people, getting them registered, and processing and sending absentee ballots.

The county has run into registration problems in connection with ACORN. The group is being investigated in several states for voter registration violations and fraud.

"I have also had a lot of complaints about ACORN being very active at East Stroudsburg University, and about duplicate registrations going on. What we receive we must process and any duplicates get declined. But that
is still a lot of wasted time," May-Silfee said.

The problems with fraudulent voter registration seem to be getting worse this year.

"It's the most I've ever seen. I think it's because these groups are out there doing these registration drives. It's my understanding that these groups were trying to meet quotas to get so many people registered. People are saying 'They told me to do it again. They told me,'" she said.

Click here to read more.

If you believe the Rendell Administration, there is no hanky-panky going on with Pennsylvania voter registrations. But the Pennsylvania Republican party filed a lawsuit on Friday despite Rendell's assurances that Obama isn't trying to steal the election. Read more about the lawsuit at GrassrootsPA

Pennsylvania Voter Registration Process Provides Protection

Just when ACORN and the Obama campaign thought they were going to steal the 2008 presidential election before anyone noticed, those pesky agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation are on the case.

The Association Press has confirmed that the FBI has launched an investigation of the pro-Obama group ACORN for voter fraud.

Specifically, the FBI wants to find out if ACORN is behind "a coordinated national scam" involving phony voter registrations.

At least 14 states are investigating ACORN-related voter fraud allegations within their borders.

ACORN stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The organization received $830,000 from the Obama campaign earlier this year to help register voters for Obama.

ACORN officials have said they registered 1.3 million new voters so far.

The Republican National Committee claims at least 200,000 of those registrations involve voter fraud.

For more on the FBI probe, read the full story from The Associated Press at The Mercury Web site.

Daily news reports of massive voter fraud by ACORN on behalf of the Barack Obama campaign are mind-boggling.

In Florida, ACORN submitted a voter registration form for a Floridian by the name of Mickey Mouse, according to Orange County elections officials.

The St. Petersburg Times reports that ACORN officials are defending their bogus registrations when confronted with evidence of voter fraud.

This year, ACORN signed up 1.3 million voters nationwide and about 152,000 in Florida, mostly in Orange, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to the Republican National Committee.

This truly is a historic election. If Obama wins, 2008 will go down as the year the presidential race was stolen from voters by a radical group called ACORN, which received $800,000 earlier this year from the Obama campaign to sign up new voters.

RNC: Vote Drives Defended, Despite Fake Names

Pennsylvania Republican Party leaders are the latest to blow the whistle on the massive voter fraud campaign orchestrated by the group ACORN on behalf of the Obama campaign.

Suspected fraud has been uncovered in Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Allegheny County, according to the state GOP.

One of the most flagrant cases of abuse involves a York man employed by ACORN who submitted more than 100 bogus registration forms during an eight-day period, according to GOP officials.

From a story by Brad Bumstead in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

"I am not confident we can get a fair election," said Sandra Schultz Newman, a former member of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court who appreared at a press conference with state GOP leaders.

You can also read more in the Harrisburg Patriot-News.

The foundation of U.S. democracy -- the concept of one man, one vote -- has been shaken to the core by the widespread voter fraud campaign orchestrated by ACORN, the far-left advocacy group that received $800,000 from the Barack Obama campaign earlier this year to register new voters for Obama.

Today's New York Post has a startling revelation that an Ohio man who was encouraged by ACORN to register 72 times. The man Freddie Johnson, 19, told the newspaper he filled out 72 registration forms after ACORN recruiters offered him money or cigarettes.

From the NY Post article:

ACORN is under investigation in Ohio and at least eight other states - including Missouri, where the FBI said it's planning to look into potential voter fraud - for over-the-top efforts to get as many names as possible on the voter rolls regardless of whether a person is registered or eligible.

It's even under investigation in Bridgeport, Conn., for allegedly registering a 7-year-old girl to vote, according to the State Elections Enforcement Commission.

Meanwhile, a federal judge yesterday ordered Ohio's Secretary of State to verify the identity of newly registered voters by matching them with other government documents. The order was in response to a Republican lawsuit unrelated to the ACORN probe in Cuyahoga County, in which at least three people, including Johnson, have been subpoenaed.

Bribing citizens with gifts, property or anything of value is a fourth-degree felony in Ohio, punishable by up to 18 months in prison. And it's a fifth-degree felony - punishable by 12 months in jail - for a person to pay "compensation on a fee-per-registration" system when signing up someone to vote.

Read the full article, "1 VOTER, 72 REGISTRATIONS" at the newspaper's Web site.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has a comprehensive story in today's edition detailing suspected voter fraud tied the left-wing advocacy group ACORN in at least nine states including Pennsylvania. ACORN is working with the Obama campaign to register voters.

From the article by staff writer Matthew Santoni:

Employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, commonly known as ACORN, are under investigation in Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin since local election officials started noticing irregularities among the thousands of registrations submitted by ACORN.

The ACORN organizer in one state said the organization had no way of checking all registrations.

Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms.

Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration from ACORN were bogging down work Wednesday, the final day Missourians could register to vote.

"I don't even know the entire scope of it because registrations are coming in so heavy," Davis said. "We have identified about 100 duplicates, and probably 280 addresses that don't exist, people who have driver's license numbers that won't verify or Social Security numbers that won't verify. Some have no address at all."

Read the full story at the newspaper's Web site.

We're on the map.

The Borough of Pottstown, population 23,000, has made the pages of The New York Times.

The article focuses on how states deal with voting rights for felons.

Pottstown was recently in the news after the Obama Campaign put a sign on its downtown Pottstown storefront window encouraging felons to register to vote (and presumably support Barack Obama.)

The sign was taken down two days after I posted a blog entry questioning why the Obama campaign would encourage felons to register in an urban setting like Pottstown when it doesn't do the same in more affluent communities.

The Mercury editorialized about the controversy and our award-winning cartoonist, Alan MacBain produced one of his best entries.

The story also got the attention of Election Journal.org

This is what The New York Times wrote over the weekend: Last month, Obama campaign workers took down a sign at their headquarters in Pottstown, Pa., that said "Felons can vote," because it might have sent the wrong message.

"The fear is that it might cost them more votes to be portrayed as the candidate of the felons than it could gain them," said Anthony C. Thompson, a New York University law professor and Obama campaign adviser. "This is a mistaken belief, in my view, when there are tens of millions of citizens with criminal records."

You can read the full article at the newspaper's Web site.

This is wrong in so many ways, I hardly know where to begin.

The Barack Obama campaign opened an office in Pottstown this week. Nothing unusual about that. The Obama camp is flush with money, some of it from questionable sources, so it can open an office in just about every city, township or borough in the United States.

If you're walking by the Obama office on High Street in downtown Pottstown, you may notice a sign in the window that encourages people to register to vote (presumably as Democrats). But right next to the bold letters "REGISTER TO VOTE," there's also this: "FELONS CAN VOTE"

Who in their right mind would be encouraging convicted criminals to register to vote? The Obama campaign for one. Is Obama that worried about the outcome of the Nov. 4 election that he's courting felons?

And why is this particular sign on display in downtown Pottstown? Is the borough known for its large "felon" population? Would the Obama campaign put up a similar sign in a more affluent community?

Pottstown residents should take offense at the implication that "felons" are walking down the street on any given day.

Some people may be under the impression that convicted felons are not allowed to vote. That's not the case in Pennsylvania.

From the Pennsylvania Department of State Web site:

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled on December 26, 2000, that the Pennsylvania law prohibiting convicted felons from registering to vote for five years after their release from prison is unconstitutional. Consequently, if completing an older version of the Voter Registration Mail Application (VRMA) form, a convicted felon who has been released from prison may make application to register to vote by striking through the felony conviction line at Section 9(2) on the VRMA and signing his or her name.

[Please note that convicted felons who are incarcerated on the date of a primary or election are not eligible to vote, irrespective of whether they are registered. However, pretrial detainees and misdemeanants are eligible to apply to register to vote and/or to vote by absentee ballot if they otherwise qualify to vote under law.]

So the law is clear. If you've committed a crime and served your sentence, you are eligible to vote. If you're still doing time, you can't vote. (But that hasn't stopped the Democratic Party from sending volunteers into prisons to register voters. This happened in 2004 right before the Bush-Kerry election.)

There's a certain "win-at-any-cost" mentality among Democrats that is unseemly. Barack Obama may become our next president after Nov. 4, but does he really want the "felon" vote to put him over the top?

I've said before in many posts about Barack Obama that you have look at the company he keeps. Anti-American loons like Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Former members of the Weather Underground terrorist group. Indicted politicians and political contributors from the Chicago political machine. And now convicted felons.

Barack Obama keeps telling us that he's a new style of politician. He can bring the nation together. The rhetoric doesn't match the reality.

Barack Obama voted 97 percent of the time with Democratic leadership in the Senate in 2007, according to Congressional Quarterly. You can't get more partisan than that.

All that talk about a new style of politics is just talk. Obama craves power. Obama craves influence. He'll take money from anyone. He'll take votes from anyone ... including convicted felons.

Voter fraud is alive and well in Pennsylvania and once again has been linked to the Democrats.

The Harrisburg Patriot-News is reporting that Dauphin County officials have uncovered at least 100 questionable voter registration forms submitted by a group called ACORN, which has been implicated on voter fraud in many states. (HT to GrassrootsPA)

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is a major voter registration recruiter for Democrats.

Dauphin County District Attorney Edward M. Marsico Jr. told the newspaper that his office has an "ongoing" criminal investigation of the ACORN matter.

Anticipating hanky panky by the Democrats, the Pennsylvania Republican Party has recruited a former Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice to head up the party's Fair Elections Task Force.

"The future of our nation will hinge on the results of this November's election, and it is our Party’s goal to make sure that the true will of the voters is carried out," said Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Robert A. Gleason Jr.

Former Justice Sandra Newman, pictured above, said, "I am honored that Chairman Gleason has asked me to head up the state Party's Fair Elections Task Force. I am confident that we will have the processes in place to ensure this election is conducted fairly and with complete openness throughout the Commonwealth on Election Day."

Read more about the GOP's efforts to monitor the November election at the party's Web site, http://www.pagop.org/