The ACORN Association Board met on Sunday March 21 and approved a set of steps to responsibly manage the process of bringing its operations to a close over the coming months. These include:

* Closing ACORN’s remaining state affiliates and field offices by April 1st; and
* Developing a plan to resolve all outstanding debts, obligations and other issues.

ACORN’s members have a great deal to be proud of–from promoting to homeownership to helping rebuild New Orleans, from raising wages to winning safer streets, from training community leaders to promoting voter participation—ACORN members have worked hard to create stronger to communities, a more inclusive democracy, and a more just nation.

The Associated Press reports that ACORN is shutting its doors “six months after video footage emerged showing some of its workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute.”

The disbanding of the community group is because of “declining revenue int he face of a series of partisan operatives and right wing activists,” Kevin Whelan told the AP.

James O’Keefe, the conservative activist who posed as a pimp, was later arrested for entering government property under false pretenses when he posed as a telephone company worker to disable the phones in the office of Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.

Maddow spoke to Iglesias, a Republican, about Republican attacks in swing states near election time—including in New Mexico, where Iglesias was the U.S. Attorney before being fired by the George W. Bush administration in controversial circumstances.

Iglesias said that many of the low-income people registered by ACORN would be likely to vote for Democrats, so Republicans both locally and nationally worked to stop ACORN from registering people from voting.

“They were looking at numbers [and] didn’t like the demographic tidal wave that was coming their way so they wanted to engage the machinery of the Justice Department to stop that wave,” Iglesias said.

For the first half of the segment embedded below, Maddow lays out the circumstances that came before Iglesias’ firing—allegations that Iglesias was pressured by Republicans to pursue voter fraud cases in election years and when he did not, a White House push to remove the U.S. Attorney.

Iglesias said there was “tremendous local media attention on what [the media] believed to be massive systemic voter fraud.”

Iglesias said the primary allegations from the Republican Party, both local and national, were that ACORN was “registering people who did not have the right to vote including underage people, including foreign nationals—who are not entitled to vote.”

Iglesias told Maddow that after two years of investigation, including setting up “one of two voter fraud task forces in the country,” and working with the FBI and Department of Justice, “I couldn’t fine one case that I could prosecute.”

TPM pointed to the recently released transcripts of Senate Judiciary Committee interviews with Rove, as well as e-mails on the subject.

“Rogers would be the dream” candidate to replace Iglesias, Jennings wrote to his boss in a January 6, 2007 e-mail, a month after Iglesias was fired.

Jennings was an ambitious operative intimately familiar with the political landscape in New Mexico.  As his bio states:

Before he joined the White House staff, President Bush’s re-election campaign asked Scott to move to New Mexico to manage its efforts there in 2004. Scott and his team flipped New Mexico from blue-to-red, one of only two states to go that way between 2000 and 2004. Scott’s efforts caught the attention of the White House, landing him in Washington.

Although Jennings had never met Iglesias, he did know Rogers and other state GOP figures. Once he moved Washington to work for Rove and Bush, Jennings invited Rogers and another state GOP lawyer, Mickey Barnett, to the White House for a breakfast. During testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2007, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., asked Jennings why, after the breakfast, Jennings asked the White House liaison to the Justice Department, Monica Goodling, to meet with the two New Mexicans “on a sensitive issue.”

Rogers had been a vocal critic of Iglesias, who he said had not been aggressive enough in pursuing charges of voter fraud. In 2004, Rogers pushed Iglesias repeatedly to pursue voter registration fraud cases, specifically against ACORN. Voter fraud was an issue he believed, if pushed properly, could help Republicans win.

In the transcripts released yesterday, House Judiciary Committee member Rep. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., pursues, a long line of questions about voter fraud, specifically about what the investigators see as the attempt by Rove to use allegations of voter fraud to their political advantage. The questions suggest that Rove wanted Iglesias to make voter fraud an issue in New Mexico because he would be seen as impartial.

From page 37 of the transcript:

Schiff: Suggesting that one party was engaged in voter fraud, whether it was true or not, could have a political impact on an election, couldn’t it?

Rove: As I have said twice before, a de minimis impact. And it also you are — implicit in your question is that only one party is engaged in voter fraud. That has not been my experience.

Schiff: Now, if you went to New Mexico, for example, and made an allegation of voter fraud, by virtue of your position as a political adviser to the President, that would tend to be discredited by some voters. Am I right?

Rove: Every argument in politics generates a counter argument, yes.

Schiff: And the fact of your position, though, would have an effect on how voters would perceive your raising the issue.

Rove: Yes.

Schiff: That issue would have more impact if the accusation came from a neutral party. Am I right?

Rove: Like the Albuquerque Tribune, yes.

Schiff: Or like a U.S. Attorney. Am I right?

Rove: I am not certain that — you may have the view that U.S. Attorneys ought to be used as people making political accusations in political campaigns. That is not my view.

Schiff: But a U.S. Attorney making an allegation of voter fraud would carry much more weight than if Karl Rove, political adviser to the President, made that allegation. Am I right?

And it continues with this exchange on page 41, where Rogers’ name comes up in a discussion of voter fraud:

Schiff: Take a look at page 161 and 162 of the OIG report. That is the other binder in front of you. Do you know a Republican from New Mexico named Pat Rogers, who is now a member of the executive committee of the Republican National Committee?

Rove: Yeah, I know of him, yes.

Schiff: And how do you know of him?

Rove: He is a long-time Republican activist in the State.

Schiff: The OIG report quotes an e-mail Mr. Rogers sent to a number of people associated with the New Mexico Republican Party as follows: “I believe the voter ID issue should be used now at all levels, Federal, State, legislative races, and Heather Wilson’s race. You are not going to find a better wedge issue. I have got to believe the voter ID issue would do Heather more good than another ad talking about how much Federal taxpayer money she has put into the State education system and Social Security. This is the single best wedge issue ever in new New Mexico.” He then goes on to talk about a lawsuit they plan to file concerning voter registrations by ACORN. Isn’t it correct, Mr. Rove, that some Republicans active in the Republican National Committee believed that this was a great wedge issue?

Rove: Mr. Rogers obviously did. I don’t.

Schiff: Did you ever pass on complaints about voter fraud by groups affiliated or leaning towards Republicans?

Rove: I don’t recall.

Also released were zillions of e-mails pertaining to the fired U.S. attorneys, including this gem from state Sen. Rod Adair, R-Roswell, who had e-mailed Rove to weigh in on the discussion of a replacement for Iglesias. Adair wrote that although Rogers would be “a fantastic choice,” he didn’t want him to be nominated because, “he is simply too valuable an asset elsewhere.”

Here’s the whole thing:

—— Forwarded Message

From: Rod Adair

,Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 11:56:05 -0500

To: Karl Rove <kr@georgewbush.com>

Conversation: US Attorney .

Subject: US Attorney

This Is a rare moment’when a matter is of such importance

that I must contact you.

The Albuquerque Journal this morning reported four names .

in consideration.for US· Attcirney for New Mexico. Three

are quite acceptable, the fourth would be a disaster. (Actually

Rogers would be a fantastic ·cholce, but it would be my hope

that he would never accept it – which I. am also certain Is

the case – ·in that he is simply too valuable an asset elsewhere.)

The singular wrong pick In this group would be Chuck Peifer.

He is, in shorthand, a wuss.

…If you are looking for someone who will follow the law scrupulously,

‘be fair, be honest, and be of service to the nation, all four~ even

Peifer, would be qualified (none more than’ Rogers, who,better not

get it). But if you are looking forsomeone who will do all the above

AND withstand any criticism, stand up to theWard ChurcbillLMkhaeL

Moore-bulliel;-Qf-the-world-and:norwony about critiCism ‘for doing

his job” the PEIFER IS DEFINITELY NOT THE CHOICE.

After receiving this message from Adair, Rove forwarded it to Jennings, asking “What is the situation here?” To which Jennings responded:

—— Forwarded Message

—-From:-SJennings@gwb43.com

Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2007 12:42:27 -0500

To: Karl Rove <KR@georgewbush.com>

Conversation: US Attorney

Subject: Re: US Attorney

Domenici wants Peifer.

Our political team wants Bibb, but Dornenici doesn’t like him for some reason•

..Rogers would be the dream, but won’t do it.

The other is .a throw-away name.

After Iglesias was fired, Rogers continued to pursue voter fraud allegations. In October 2008, just before the presidential election, he and other state GOP members (including former state Rep. Justine Fox Young, an associate of Barnett’s) claimed they had “bombshell” evidence of voter fraud at a press conference, handing out copies of voter registration cards and documentation suggesting that the registrations were fraudulent.

Days later, the claims fell apart as the allegedly fraudulent voters began appearing at press conferences to demonstrate that they were, in fact, real people and legally registered.

Also in 2008, in his capacity as attorney for the Republican Party of New Mexico, Rogers hired a private investigator to investigate possible voter fraud.

The private investigator’s visits to the homes of several voters resulted in two voter intimidation lawsuits, one filed by the ACLU and the other by the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, and the cases also attracted the attention of investigators from the Department of Justice.

I asked Scott Oskay, via Twitter, “are you advocating violence against ACORN or SEIU members?” He responded, “I would advocate retaliation for intimidation, be it verbal or physical.”

This comes on the heels of the fistfight at a health care town hall meeting in Florida.

It all began just before noon today when Oskay wrote:

if ACORN/SEIU attends these townhalls, take pictures of them, and of their license plates on anticipation of disruption. #iamthemob #tlot

Then:

If ACORN/SEIU attends these meetings for disruptive purposes, and you have a license to carry….carry.

Then:

If ACORN/SEIU attends these townhalls for disruption, stop being peaceful, and hurt them. Badly #iamthemob

And:

If ACORN/SEIU attends, remind them that your target is centralized, while you and your allies, are not. #iamthemob #tlot

A screenshot of Oskay’s page is below:

Heather Heidelbaugh discusses ACORN on "The O'Reilly Factor" on March 31.

WASHINGTON — The first week of May was as eventful for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, ACORN, as any time since the 2008 election. It began with 26 counts of extortion and voter registration fraud filed against the group and some of its members in Clark County, Nevada. It continued with the indictments of seven ACORN workers in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Democrats staged a floor fight over a Republican amendment to block any organization that had indicted members from getting taxpayer dollars. ACORN’s national spokesman was kicked off of Glenn Beck’s Fox News set

Republicans pounced, and the week ended with a RNC fundraising appeal that attacked the Obama administration for considering the use of “sampling” in the upcoming Census as a hidden-in-plain sight benefit to ACORN.

“ACORN’s community organizers are eager to once again take action to aid their old friend in the White House,” wrote RNC Chairman Michael Steele. “You can be sure they’ll be manipulating population numbers.

The 39-year-old group has never been more controversial. Bertha Lewis, the chief executive officer and chief organizer of ACORN since the middle of last year, could not have been happier.

“Fine, bring it,” she said in an interview with TWI, inside ACORN’s national offices near Capitol Hill. Lewis brought up her fists in a boxing stance. “Let’s bring it. We know what the true facts are. We know that we’ll win in court. Our strategy now is to beef up our operations so we can defend ourselves.”

ACORN spent decades under the radar, agitating on housing and employment issues, garnering the ire of business and conservative leaders, but not really winning political infamy. That changed in 2008, and Lewis now believes the organization’s next 39 years might be spent in a permanent offensive stance — battling lawsuits, defending its “brand” against attacks from Republicans, and indulging in cable news shouting matches. In the space of months the group has become the most notorious member of the Democrats’ coalition. To many conservatives, it’s about time, and it’s the pay-off for years of fruitless exposes of ACORN’s influence.

“Republicans had been looking for a way to bring them down for a long time,” explained Matthew Vadum, a senior editor at the Capital Research Center, an anti-union think tank, “In the last year, all these of opportunities were presented to them. Barack Obama was running for president, and he’d been a ‘community organizer’ who’d worked with ACORN, and that heightened interest in what ‘community organizing’ was, and who these people were. All these corrupt things you’re hearing about today, they were happening in the past. They just weren’t as interesting or as sexy for the media.”

The Capital Research Center, founded in 1984 and located in a rambling, busy townhouse off of Dupont Circle, was one of the conservative organizations that spent years investigating ACORN while having little luck at weakening them. As recently as 2006, a Republican like Sen. John McCain was comfortable attending the group’s national convention to ask for support on immigration reform. That changed with the 2006 elections and the indictments of ACORN workers, in key campaign states like Missouri, for voter fraud — something that was pushed behind the scenes by the Department of Justice, and was part of the broad scandal surrounding the firing of nine U.S. attorneys that ended with the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

“I think they’ve never forgiven us for being the impetus of bringing down Alberto Gonzales,” said Lewis. “They came after us in 2006, and tried to get [former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico] David Iglesias and these other attorneys to come back with something, and there was nothing. We don’t get enough credit for bringing down Gonzales.”

All of this came shortly before ACORN’s leadership would be taken down in a separate scandal. In 2008, the group’s founder Wade Rathke resigned after an investigation revealed that his brother had stolen $1 million from ACORN. It was a public relations blow and an organizational crisis — Rathke, according to Vadum, was an “organizational genius” — and it led directly into a general election where ACORN faced more indictments and became a bruising point of attack for Republicans. According to McCain, ACORN was “destroying the fabric of democracy,” and according to the Republican Party the group was trying to “steal the election” by registering fraudulent voters.

Republican officials now admit that the group didn’t really come close to stealing the race for Obama. On Election Day, recalled Nevada Republican Party Chairwoman Sue Lowden, the GOP watched the issue closely, alerted state officials to bogus registrations, and dispatched “trained people” to the polls to look for voters showing up to cast ballots under assumed names at fake addresses. None showed up. “Would it have made a difference?” asked Lowden. “No, none of our races were that close.”

Nonetheless, Lowden was one of many Republicans who cheered at the indictments handed down in Nevada this week. They came after local officials, several of them Democrats, answered the 11th-hour controversies over ACORN registrations by asking for official investigations. The timing was good for House Republicans who spent last week attempting to save an amendment that was explicitly written to block money for ACORN, but it took others by surprise.

“I’m surprised that it’s not happening closer to the election,” said David Iglesias, a former U.S. attorney who lost his job after declining to throw the book at ACORN in 2006. “It’s worse than beating a dead horse. The horse is just buried. I never reviewed any evidence to see that ACORN, as an organization, was directing fraud. That’s the kind of evidence that you need to actually win one of these prosecutions.”

The prosecutions, and their coverage, were a token of ACORN’s new, ever-controversial reality. In the past six months, they have been accused, by conservatives, of being the culprits of much more than voter registration fraud, and any hint of ACORN connections have been enough for robust attacks on liberals. Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center has popularized the dubious theory that ACORN’s campaigns for low-income housing was “at the base” of the housing bubble and the subsequent economic collapse. House Republicans have frequently portrayed the economic stimulus package as a giveaway to ACORN which, they argued, would be eligible for a portion of $4.19 billion in “neighborhood stabilization” funding earmarked in the bill for states, local governments and community groups. David F. Hamilton, President Obama’s nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, was opposed by the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network because he had done some work with ACORN in the 1970s. At the first anti-stimulus “Tea Party” protests in late February, some protesters brandished anti-ACORN signs — before the wave of protests on April 15, a rumor spread that ACORN was readying a campaign of mass disruptions and infiltration. In Fox News reports, this rumor was traced back to “some people.” At the Tea Party in Washington, the occasional trouble-makers that walked by, such as the ironic protesters of Billionaires for Bush, were greeted by shouts of “ACORN,” even though they had nothing to do with the group.

Lewis reiterated what she said in April — “we don’t care about their Tea Parties” — but Heather Heidelbaugh, a Pittsburgh lawyer who has aggressively investigated ACORN scandals on behalf of state Republicans, said that three members of the group showed up at the Pittsburgh Tea Party. They simply weren’t undercover. And in any case, Heidelbaugh has concentrated more on representing ACORN whistleblowers who claim that the organization exploits its volunteers and offers up “muscle for money” — protesters for hire to shake down other organizations. In March, Heidelbaugh testified before a House panel and got what sounded like a tentative commitment from Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to investigate the group.

“The Democrats have found a natural constituency with ACORN,” said Heidelbaugh, “but there’s a rising tide here. The more they are exposed by their members, the more difficult it will be for their natural constituents to support them, because it will be politically impossible to do so.”

But the break hasn’t happened yet. Heidelbaugh was disappointed last week after Conyers balked at an investigation after speaking with ACORN and being told by fellow Democratic members that the case against ACORN was baseless. One unintended consequence of the Republican anti-ACORN push, so far, has been unified support from Democrats against the attacks. Only four House Democrats voted against an amendment that struck Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) rule to deny contracts to any group with a member under indictment.

“The media plays a vital role in this,” said Heidelbaugh. “If the criticism of ACORN comes across as ‘those Republicans going after ACORN again,’ it gets covered like a political attack. If you state the facts, that there are African-American board members of ACORN who want to expose corruption in this organization, then the Democratic Congress might stop and say, ‘What’s going on here?’ That’s not happening yet.”

Lewis relished in the way that Republicans were politicizing the case against ACORN, and credited the Democrats with “standing up” against anti-ACORN legislation — even if they don’t brag about it in their campaigns. “The more wacko the Republicans get,” said Lewis, “and the more shrill they are, and the more we stand up, whether it’s the administration or it’s us, the more people are going to go, ‘You know, these people are wacky, this is silly, and this is stupid.’”

A field director in ACORN’s voter registration program, Mouath B. Baesho, wrote the e-mail and said ACORN registered 1.3 million citizens around the nation to vote this year. That number is probably inflated. Baesho wrote about Jenais Griego, a 67-year-old newly naturalized citizen, from Albuquerque.

“In April, I helped her fill out a voter registration application — right after the ceremony where she was sworn in as a U.S. citizen,” Baesho wrote. “I’ll never forget the look of pride on her face as she finished filling out the form, ready to participate fully in our democracy.”

Then Baesho turned to the allegations of illegal votes cast by those registered by ACORN by the New Mexico Republican Party. Baesho said ACORN came “under fire by partisan operatives” who attempted to stop voters from voting by voter intimidation.

This included visits to Griego’s house by a private investigator who attempted to find improprieties in Griego’s voter registration. The private investigators were hired by Pat Rogers — a prominent New Mexico Republican lawyer — to research a possible lawsuit against ACORN.

The e-mail quoted Griego from a press conference.

“Nobody can scare me out of voting. Nobody,” Jenais Griego said. “It even makes me want to vote more.”

Then, Baesho asked for “a tax-deductible gift” of “$50, $100, or $500 so we can continue to protect voter rights in low-income communities in 2009 and beyond.”

Barack Obama won, there were only isolated election glitches and all’s right with the world.

That, at least, is one emerging mainstream media view about Election Day. As The Associated Press declared, “After all that fuss, the system worked. There was no meltdown, no flurry of lawsuits, no statewide demands for a presidential recount.”

But just because there was no repeat of a nightmare scenario like the 2000 Florida recount doesn’t mean there weren’t systemic problems in the country’s diverse electoral systems.

In Minnesota, problem-plagued ballot scanners threaten an accurate recount in the contest between Sen. Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken, according to Minnesota Independent.

In Virginia, where Obama won easily, the Election Protection coalition’s war room received reports from across the state about long lines, broken machines and thwarted access for elderly and disabled voters, despite the governor’s claim that Virginia was prepared.

In Richmond, Judith Browne-Dias, co-director of the nonprofit voting rights group Advancement Project, charged that the city’s election registrar, J. Kirk Showalter, allegedly violated federal law by telling some polling place officials to turn away voters who weren’t on the precinct’s rolls without even offering them provisional ballots. Browne-Dias cited interviews she conducted with two top election “judges.” When she asked one of them under what circumstances they offered provisional ballots to voters, the official replied, “When they’re very persistent.”

Showalter denied telling any poll officials to deny ballots to voters who claim to have registered to vote, except for those who are listed as being registered in another district. “The proof is we had a lot of provisional ballots issued,” although the office hadn’t finished counting them by mid-week.

In addition, there were thousands of complaints about voters dropped from voting rolls in Ohio and elsewhere. Civilrights.org picked up on reports of six-hour waits for voters in Missouri and Pennsylvania and Virginia. All told, the national Election Protection hot line received more than 200,000 calls of all kinds, including more than 80,000 on Election Day alone.

Obama’s victory, said Michael Waldman, executive director of New York University’s Brennan Center, “shows that there’s a thirst for public participation. But we have a long way to go before we have a modern, user-friendly, inclusive voting system.” Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, had a harsher assessment: “The American election system is broken,” she said.

As Christopher Edley Jr., dean of the Berkeley Law School, wrote in The Washington Post, the long lines on Election Day should be seen as not merely a sign of voter enthusiasm, but as a “time tax“ akin to the now-illegal “poll tax” levied on blacks in the segregated South — and should also be barred by law.

Waldman and some other advocates believe President-elect Obama will support reforms because of his past work as a voting rights lawyer and his co-sponsorship of a bill barring deceptive election practices. “He has been a proponent of democracy reform,” said Waldman. The Center is pushing a new proposal that would overcome wildly diverse voting restrictions with European-style, permanent universal registration for U.S. citizens.

“Registration problems are the No. 1 source of disenfranchisement,” said Wendy Weiser, a senior attorney at the Brennan Center. “This takes the politics out of registration.”

Supporters say automatically adding voters from a variety of government data lists could mollify conservatives worried about registration fraud by groups like ACORN, as well as progressives who want voting opportunities expanded without having to devote resources to voting registration. That assumes that GOP officials are genuinely concerned about registration and voter fraud in their effort to purge voter rolls as opposed to simply seeking to hold down turnout. Yet Weiser contends, “It’s embarrassing to people from both the right and the left that there’s constant litigation over who can vote.”

But Brad Friedman, the prolific author of Brad Blog, is skeptical about Obama’s commitment to sweeping election reform. He notes that the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee generally avoided challenging voter suppression and machine failures, as in Nevada, in order to avoid raising alarms among potential Democratic voters.

The president-elect “understands the front-end vote-suppression stuff, but not the back end with the machines,” Friedman said. “Even if you help every legal voter to vote, what does it mean if a single person can flip the results [by hacking a machine] or the machine breaks down?”

If nothing else, the polemics around voter suppression and “voter fraud” during the presidential campaign showed a new growing awareness of election reform issues. Mainstream nonprofit labor and advocacy organizations, for example, are forming new State Voices coalitions to push for greater civic engagement via voter participation.

But as long as there are 13,000 different election boards with their own rules, the potential for manipulation of the voting system will endure and the hope for any meaningful election reform will go aglimmering — no matter who lives in the White House.

Research support for this article was provided by the Nation Institute Investigative Fund.

“This is a bombshell. We now have undeniable proof that a significant number of fraudulent votes were cast in Democrat primary races for the New Mexico state legislature as a result of ACORN’s voter registration fraud. …No longer can ACORN argue that their phony voter registration forms don’t translate into fraudulent votes. They do and today we can prove it.”

As NMI reported Monday, Martinez claims there was nothing wrong with his registration:

“All he [an ACORN representative] did was call my number and he reached me,” Martinez said. ”I went to the county clerk and got a copy of my registration and everything was right, my home address, my social, my name, everything was correct. There was nothing funny or wrong with it at all,” he said.

Martinez and the ACLU are now suing Fox-Young, and the private investigator who said he was working for Republican attorney Pat Rogers, for release of violation of privacy and voter intimidation. In a separate lawsuit, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund is suing Rogers and Romero on behalf of two voters who were visited by the private investigator, seeking “to enjoin Defendant individuals from threatening and intimidating minority race voters.”

ACORN, which helped ACLU and MALDEF connect with voters for the lawsuits, is framing the lawsuits as part of its strategy to fight back against unwarranted claims of fraud.

In a statement released today, Republican National Committee’s chief counsel, Sean Cairncross, had this to say:

“Acorn’s most recent charges of voter suppression seem to be yet another attempt by this questionable organization to waste valuable taxpayer money and cloud their own record of voter registration fraud,” Mr. Cairncross said. “Just as a losing Kerry campaign election manual in 2004 urged activists to lodge a ‘pre-emptive strike’ claiming voter intimidation regardless of validity, Acorn is taking a page straight from the Democrats’ playbook.”

There were two Republican responses in this morning’s Albuquerque Journal:

Fox-Young said in a written statement that the suit is an attempt to shift attention away from ACORN, a group accused of submitting fraudulent voter registration cards. The Bernalillo County clerk met with the FBI this month to discuss about 1,500 suspicious cards. 

NM State Rep. Justine Fox-Young

“This lawsuit is another diversionary tactic intended to silence critics of ACORN’s corrupt practices,” Fox-Young said.

State GOP spokeswoman Shira Rawlinson called the ACLU lawsuit “desperate.”

“It should be a surprise to no one that the ACLU has filed a baseless lawsuit for political purposes on behalf of ACORN, an organization that not only has engaged in voter fraud, but has employed convicted felons as voter registrars,” Rawlinson said. 

NMI’s calls to Fox-Young, Pat Rogers and private investigator AL Romero have not been returned.