Drew Griffin on ACORN
"CNN American Morning"7:31am
Package
TOPIC: ACORN's effect on Voter reg. in Philadelphia
TRANSCRIPT: DREW GRIFFIN: [...] The good news- there have been hundreds of thousands of new voter registrations processed in Philadelphia, including a vast majority, of good, clean registrations from ACORN. The Bad news- Philadelphia has already sent 1,500 obvious fraudulent registrations to the U.S. Attorney to be investigated. Every one of them from the same group- ACORN.
GRIFFIN: Is ACORN a group that has been problematic in its organizing of these voter registration drives?
FRED VOIGT: Absolutely.
GRIFFIN: Have you tried to work with them to explain to them...
VOIGT: Absolutely.
GRIFFIN: Why aren't...'cause this is...
VOIGT: I don't have any answers for you, okay?
GRIFFIN: Right.
VOIGT: We originally, I mean, this has been going on for a number of years. We have met with them, we have talked to them.
GRIFFIN: According to city officials, close to 8,000 applications turned in by ACORN are problematic- including the 1500 already sent to the U.S. Attorney. And officials expect the number to climb. Fred Voigt says, so far, his office is catching them- making sure no bad registrations lead to bad votes, but admits he has limited staff.
VOIGT: Are there gonna be bad votes? Sure, there're gonna be bad votes. There are always bad votes. Am I concerned- this is a close election? Of course I'm concerned if it's a close election, but you have to weigh everything in terms of your capacity to find things out.
GRIFFIN: Voigt says the problem is ACORN hires people desperate for money, including drug addicts, homeless, recovering alcoholics- even recent parolees- who only get paid if they get signatures.
VOIGT: We just looked at them- and it was all in the same hand, You could see some, they used a phonebook including the apostrophe. You know, some of them...
GRIFFIN: Went down in the phonebook and just copied it verbatim right out
VOIGT: Kitchen, petition, that's what it is.
GRIFFIN: Kitchen petition.
GRIFFIN VOIGT: Sitting around the kitchen, fill out the petition.
VOIGT: That happens.
GRIFFIN: We went to ACORN's Philadelphia headquarters, where a rally was taking place, telling volunteers the recent news about Voter Fraud was just another attack by the right win and the media on the poor.
SPEAKER AT RALLY: That is fraud! That is voter suppression! That is not new. Where is the news media when that is going on?
[...]
GRIFFIN: Why is a deputy City commissioner of Philadelphia telling me that ACORN is hiring recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, homeless people who are so desperate to get money that they know that they don't make their quota, they just fill in any old name- that's what he's telling me.
MARCANO: That's just not the point.[...]We did not deliberately go on there and say "You're homeless, you're a recovering alcoholic, you are...
GRIFFIN: But has it presented itself as a problem to ACORN? Wouldn't ACORN like to run a nice, clean, smooth voter registration drive?
MARCANO: We have done that, because if we have been able to register 85,000, above 85,000 good registrants, compared to 5,000 suspect cards, we have done a good job.
[...]
LABEL: DG DG CNN 10-15-08 7.32 (LAD#12) ZZ
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4:02Rep. King discusses ACORN on CNNby RepSteveKing319 views
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