On Monday, investigators in a Cuyahoga County probe of ACORN’s voter registration activities revealed that nearly 4,000 voter registration applications supplied by the activist group were questionable, and that one Ohio man registered to vote several times and cast a bogus ballot using a fake address.
Darnell Nash, one of the four people subpoenaed in the Cleveland area investigation, had his vote canceled and his case turned over to local prosecutors and law enforcement said Board of Elections officials. At a hearing during which the subpoenaed voters were scheduled to testify, officials said that Nash had repeatedly registered to vote from an address belonging to a legitimately registered voter. Election board officials said they had contacted Nash over the summer, questioned his address, and asked him to stop repeatedly registering.
Regardless, Nash was able to breeze through Ohio election offices during the early voting period, registered with a fake address and cast a paper ballot.
Board official Jane Platten said, “He came in on 9/30 and Mr. Nash again registered to vote at [someone else’s]address, and he cast a ballot.”
Officials also said that around 5 percent, or 3,650, of the 73,000 total registration cards turned in by ACORN in the Cleveland area from its Project Vote initiative to sign up low-income voters were questionable. Platten said there were “egregarious acts of registering multiple times. The extend of it is beyond the resources of this board.”
A spokesman for prosecutor Bill Masson said that Nash’s case and three others were turned over to authorities yesterday. “We will consider presenting it to a grand jury,” said the spokesman.
Platten insisted that ACORN officials have offered “any and all” help in investigating the questionable activities. Ohio state director of ACORN, Katy Gall, said that her group has fired anyone found soliciting duplicate registrations.
