Department of Justice Cooperating with (ACORN’S) Project Vote

This is one of those times that I have to pull out the Parallel Universe theme. Apparently, the DOJ thinks it’s just great to cooperate with the organization formerly known as ACORN. As you all will recall, ACORN went out of business (kind of), but most all of their affiliate organizations opened the next day with a different name on the door. Project Vote is apparently one of the affiliates that changed their names once the parent organization went “poof.” Project Vote is rather infamous for registering tens of thousands of non-existent voters over the past several years, so it might be surprising that the DOJ is cooperating with them in a lawsuit. Or is it?

Readers will also recall that ACORN activists have long been involved in voter registration fraud, either directly or through its Project Vote affiliate. At least 70 ACORN/Project Vote employees have been convicted of voter registration fraud in a dozen states since 2006. According to a 2009 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report, approximately a third of the 1.2 million new registrations turned in by the two groups in 2008 were fraudulent.

Despite all this, documents obtained recently by Judicial Watch via the Freedom of Information Act suggest that President Obama — who was employed by Project Vote as a community organizer early in his career — and Attorney General Eric Holder have no qualms about working closely with present and former ACORN and Project Vote operatives on voter registration drives aimed at people on public assistance. Take, for example, an April 2009 letter to deputy assistant attorney general Sam Hirsh from former ACORN attorney and current Project Vote director of advocacy Estelle Rogers. She described preparations for a subsequent meeting about Department of Justice plans concerning National Voter Registration Act litigation in states deemed not being sufficiently aggressive in registering public assistance recipients.

So, our democratic administration is cooperating with members of a defunct organization known for voter registration fraud. But, then again, it isn’t such a surprise. After all, this is the same DOJ that said that the following is not voter intimidation…

And, in the Motor Voter Law, there is a provision mandating that deceased and otherwise ineligible voters be purged from the rolls. However, the DOJ has no intention of enforcing it…

For background on what AG Holder is up to (or not up to), take a look at this from Pajamas Media.

Motor Voter struck an important balance — it sought to increase voter registration, as well as ensure voter integrity. Welfare offices and motor vehicle offices became voter registration centers. But the law also required states to conduct list maintenance to ensure ineligible names don’t pollute the voting rolls. Dead people, ineligible felons, and people who moved away must be removed from the rolls by state election officials.

The attorney general was given the power to enforce both provisions of Motor Voter, yet Eric Holder is only interested in enforcing one. This attorney general simply won’t do his job and enforce the list integrity requirements.

The decision of the Holder DOJ to ignore the integrity provisions of Section 8 is deliberate and corrupt. In November 2009, political appointee Julie Fernandes told the entire assembled DOJ Voting Section that the Obama administration would not enforce the list maintenance provisions of Section 8. Section 8 “doesn’t have anything to do with increasing minority turnout,” Fernandes said. “We don’t have any interest in enforcing that part of the law.” End of story.

So, the DOJ is cooperating with people linked to voter registration fraud, when, at the same time, refusing to purge the rolls of the deceased. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by that, given that a bunch of dead people voted on the last election. But, I’m sure that there is no connection, right?

H/T: The Lonely Conservative