Topic: Newsmax
An Oct. 6 Newsmax article by Lowell Ponte asserts that Barack Obama "can’t hide from the facts of his close relationship" with "the radical group ACORN," but Ponte appears to overstate his case and misleads about other details.
Ponte claims that Obama was "a key operative for the organization" and "was its lawyer in several pivotal ACORN cases" -- claims he doesn't really substantiate. He further claimed that "In 1992, Obama took time off as a lawyer to direct Project Vote, ACORN’s voter mobilization entity, statewide in Illinois." But as Obama's "Fight the Smears" website points out, Project Vote was not affiliated with ACORN in 1992.
Ponte also writes:
In Washington state, five ACORN employees were convicted in 2007 in what its Secretary of State Sam Reed called “the worst case of election fraud in our state’s history. It was an outrage.”
In this state the current Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire was elected literally by a handful of votes, but 450 apparently fictitious names were found registered to vote as Democrats at a single address. At least 1,700 ACORN voter registrations — using the names of Harry Reid, Dennis Hastert, and movie and sports stars — were later revoked in just one county of the state.
Ponte is conflating two separate incidents, and misleading about both. The governor's race to which he refers occurred in 2004, and then-U.S. Attorney John McKay said no charges of voter fraud were filed because "there was no evidence of voter fraud or election fraud." Regarding the 2007 case of apparently fraudulent voter registrations, Ponte fails to note that no votes were cast under those registrations.
Ponte even bizarrely tries to tie Obama to 9/11 because Obama worked as one of several lawyers for ACORN in a lawsuit to force the state of Illinois to enforce the "motor voter" law:
Motor Voter was the Clinton administration’s attempt permanently to tilt voter rolls in favor of the Democratic Party. And Obama, working for ACORN, played a key role in imposing this law.
Perhaps thanks to ACORN’s and Motor Voter’s influence, of the 19 foreign terrorists who attacked America on 9/11, at least six were registered to vote.
Then again, Ponte is no stranger to bizarre, baseless claims.
