The Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN) is a group that has come under heavy scrutiny during the presidential campaign after probes into suspected voter fraud in a number of battleground states, including Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada and New Mexico. ACORN is mostly a city-based group actively involved in registering Democratic voters and promoting left-wing agendas through political action. President Obama also has ties to ACORN that are far more extensive than most people are aware of.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, had called for hearings on accusations that ACORN was/is involved with crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style ‘protection’ racket. However, someone pulled the plug on the investigation. Rampant voter fraud would not reflect well on a president who promised (long since broken) honesty and transparency in his administration.

The Washington Times reported that the “powers that be” put a stop to this investigation. Unfortunately, most Democrats do not seem to mind having corrupt organizations working on their behalf. Attempts to clarify which “powers” are blocking the investigation have yielded no one willing to talk.

ACORN and its affiliates are currently facing at least 14 lawsuits connected to voter fraud in the 2008 election. Additionally, former ACORN members have filed a complaint against the organization under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

Newsmax reports criminal prosecutions and investigations pending against ACORN and its former workers include:

• An ongoing FBI probe.
• In Las Vegas and Pittsburgh, prosecutors have filed indictments against several former ACORN operatives. Charges focus on the organization’s alleged practice of establishing quotas specifying the number of registrations workers were required to submit each day. Many states outlaw such quotas, for fear they may pressure canvassers into encouraging fraudulent registrations.
• Ohio’s Cuyahoga County has indicted Darnell Nash, an ACORN-registered voter, for voting illegally. Nash registered to vote on nine occasions, using different names and addresses each time.
• Investigators have said that as many as 4,000 ACORN voter registrations in Ohio could be fraudulent.

Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner asked, “Chairman Conyers has a responsibility to explain who is blocking this investigation, and why. Is it Speaker Pelosi? Others in the Democratic leadership? Who in Congress is covering up ACORN’s corruption?”

The Seattle Times reports that felony charges were filed “against seven [ACORN] people who allegedly committed the biggest voter-registration fraud in state history… The announcement of criminal charges came after the King County Canvassing Board revoked 1,762 allegedly fraudulent voter registrations submitted by ACORN employees.”

According to prosecutors, six ACORN workers “had admitted filling out registration forms with names they found in phone books last October. The canvassers filled out the forms while sitting around a table at the downtown Seattle Public Library.”

ACORN may have played a part in the election Al Franken recently won. Matthew Vadum, senior editor for the Capital Research Center think tank, does not rule out that possibility.

He points out that ACORN registers voters who are expected to vote Democratic in overwhelming numbers, based on demographics. In the year leading up to the election, ACORN tallied 43,000 new registrations in Minnesota. That was likely a decisive factor in a contest decided by 312 votes out of nearly 3 million ballots cast.

There is good reason to believe that Franken received just enough fraudulent votes to swing the election his way. According to a Newsmax report, the process

began when ACORN helped Minnesota’s secretary of state, Mark Ritchie, get elected in 2006. Ritchie is a favorite son of the George Soros-funded Secretary of State Project (SOS), which has succeeded in installing partisans in key state positions that can influence election outcomes.

Ritchie, for example, presided over the recount that saw Coleman lose an apparent lead of 775 votes on Election Day. All of Coleman’s legal challenges to that recount were thwarted.

Vadum blames Coleman’s repeated setbacks on “the permissive environment created by the secretary of state who is ACORN’s man — endorsed by them, and ACORN supporters gave money to him.

Investigator Matthew Vadum states that, “ACORN is essentially a massive crime family that has tentacles across the nation. It’s involved in racketeering and it should be investigated for federal racketeering violations.”

In the wake of so much attention surrounding ACORN’s dishonest activities, they may re-name the organization in an attempt to hide its sordid past. ACORN’s global entity, ACORN International, announced June 17 that it has changed its name to “Community Organizations International.” It’s unclear whether the parent organization, ACORN, will change its name.

Like many left-wing groups, they are vehemently anti-American and anti-capitalist in their agenda. Until ACORN is fully exposed and the American people understand what is happening, this group will continue to receive millions of our taxpayer dollars, through Obama’s so-called stimulus plan, to undermine a foundation of liberty - that is free and untainted elections.