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Monday, October 27, 2008

Ind. Law - More on "ACORN followed law on suspect voter registrations"

Updating this ILB entry from Oct. 18, Tim Evans of the Indianapolis Star, who wrote the earlier story, reports today:

Secretary of State Todd Rokita said today that a preliminary investigation by his office has found evidence of “multiple criminal violations, including possible state and federal racketeering laws,” in conjunction with hundreds of fraudulent voter registration applications filed in Lake County.

The findings and a request for prosecution are detailed in a letter Rokita, Indiana’s top election official, sent last week to Lake County Prosecutor Bernard A. Carter, U.S. Attorney David Capp and Michael Welch, special agent in charge of the FBI's Indianapolis office.

The allegations of knowingly submitting fraudulent applications, a Class D felony, are aimed at the left-leaning activist group, Acorn, which conducted registration drives in several key presidential battleground states. Acorn is being investigated for similar issues in about a dozen other states.

Lake County election officials have alleged, and Acorn officials confirmed, that the organization submitted hundreds of potentially bad voter registration applications earlier this month.

Acorn officials contend they are required by law to submit all applications it collects, and a spokesman said they made efforts to call attention to applications that appeared to be problematic. The official said Acorn was the victim of unscrupulous employees and the organization fired at least five of those involved with the Lake County drive.

Rokita’s letter, however, states that “complying with the law to submit legitimate applications does not allow Acorn officials to evade the law against knowingly submitting fraudulent applications.”

These statements are also in Patrick Guinane's NWI Times story:
ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has blamed the bulk of the invalid registration on a handful of unscrupulous canvassers, who were paid $8 to register voters. Kettenring said state law requires the group to turn in every application collected, so it segregated the sketchy forms before submitting them to Lake County officials.

Rokita argues ACORN knowingly submitted fraudulent applications, which he said is illegal.

"Simply put, complying with the law to submit legitimate applications does not allow ACORN officials to evade the law against knowingly submitting fraudulent applications," Rokita wrote.

The Times also has a link to the Secretary of State's 6-page, Oct. 22nd letter to the DOJ, with many redactions. Here is the portion about turning in all applications:
IV. ACORN'S Public Defense is not Relevant to the Violations of Law

If ACORN is contending that it brought this matter to the attention of local election officials, then NWI-ACORN will surely wish to assist law enforcement in bringing the bad actors inside the organization to justice. ACORN has also claimed to be in compliance with Indiana law IC 3-14-2-5(b). But contrary to the claims of ACORN, a person who complies with the law to submit completed voter registration applications is not able as a result to evade the law against knowingly submitting false or fraudulent applications.

Indiana Code 3-14-2-5(b) provides that a person who "fails to file or deliver to the proper officer a . . . form of registration after the . . . form has been executed commits a Class A misdemeanor." The law exists to prevent "lost" applications of those thought to be supporters of an opposing party candidate, for example. Indiana Code 3-14-3-1.1 makes it a Class D felony for a person to knowingly procure or submit "voter registration applications known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent" and IC 3-14-2-1 makes it a Class D felony for a person to conspire with another in such behavior.

Every person has the duty under the law not to aid or assist others in breaking the law. Clearly, ACORN representatives continued to submit applications they knew to be fraudulent to voter registration officials rather than submit evidence and contact information for possible suspects to local law enforcement officials (who have offices in the same building). Simply put, complying with the law to submit legitimate applications does not allow ACORN officials to evade the law against knowingly submitting fraudulent applications [ILB - Emphasis in the original.]

Judge for yourselves. Here is a link to IC 3-14-2-5.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 27, 2008 06:45 PM
Posted to Indiana Law