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Now Ramsey County is looking at ACORN over vote cards
Nearly half of the 800 given to county were held too long.
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The community action group Minnesota ACORN is under investigation in Ramsey County for allegedly mishandling voter registration cards.
Nearly half of about 800 voter registration cards the group submitted to county election officials Tuesday had been held longer than the 10 days permitted by state law. Some of the cards had been signed by would-be voters as long as 27 days ago, according to Ramsey County officials.
All of the registration cards were processed by Friday, giving the county time to confirm the voter information so all the registrants will be eligible to cast ballots in November, said Ramsey County Elections Manager Joe Mansky.
Similar problems arose earlier last week with registrations collected by ACORN in Hennepin County. The group could face prosecution over the tardy submissions, a possibility that will depend on the results of an investigation, said Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Phil Carruthers.
On Wednesday, the Republican National Committee contended that Minnesota ACORN's issues in Hennepin County were linked to allegations of voter registration fraud by the group elsewhere and condemned presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama's onetime involvement with ACORN in Chicago.
In a statement Thursday, Minnesota ACORN called the RNC's charges "a disappointing attack on a community organization which is working to increase public participation in democracy."
A handful of registration cards -- 16 -- that have come to the Ramsey County elections office through ACORN this year have been set aside as possibly false or fraudulent, Carruthers said, but most of them arrived already flagged by the group.
"I don't have the impression that their mission in life here is to massively violate our voter registration law," Mansky said. "The reality of life is that my staff is small, and as a consequence, the focus of our activity is really the administrative part of the job. I don't have the resources to go out in the community and register large numbers of voters. We really rely on groups like ACORN, like the League [of Women Voters], like the political parties and candidates to get people registered. That is a legitimate act. ACORN's efforts, focusing on people who are traditionally left out of the process is a good thing. We would encourage them to do that. But they've got to follow the law."
Maria Elena Baca • 612-673-4409
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