HARRISBURG -- Former state Supreme Court Justice Sandra Newman said Friday she has no confidence in the integrity of the electoral process in Pennsylvania as a result of the extensive voter registration effort by a community group with ties to Barack Obama.
She and other Republicans allege the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, known as ACORN, might be involved in widespread fraud. Pennsylvania and eight other states are investigating suspicious or incomplete registration forms submitted by ACORN canvassers.
"I am not confident we can get a fair election" on Nov. 4, said Newman, a Republican from Montgomery County who retired from the court in 2006.
Obama campaign spokeswoman Allison Price said Obama "is committed to making sure all voters can participate in this election. Anyone violating election law should be held accountable. This is another tactic the Republicans are using to detract voters from real issues."
Charles Jackson, a spokesman for ACORN, said the organization has "aggressive procedures in place" to identify questionable forms and calls them to the attention of authorities when they find them.
Newman appeared at a news conference with Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Rob Gleason and Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico.
Gleason, citing "the potential of massive voter fraud" nationwide, said ACORN and other groups had submitted 252,595 voter registrations in Philadelphia. There were 57,435 registrations rejected -- most of them submitted by ACORN, Gleason said. They had faulty Social Security numbers, incorrect dates of birth, "clearly fraudulent" signatures, addresses that did not exist and duplicate registrations, Gleason said. A man was registered to vote 15 times since the primary, according to Gleason, and some people listed vacant lots as their addresses.
Other areas, from Delaware County in the Philadelphia suburbs to Allegheny County, have had similar problems, Newman said. Issues surrounding ACORN have surfaced in Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin, Gleason added.
ACORN says it registered 40,000 voters in the Pittsburgh area.
Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said Thursday that he believes laws were broken.
"There are clearly people on some of these applications that were not solicited ... or may not exist," Zappala said. His office would not say yesterday whether investigators are focusing on ACORN.
Republicans said Obama had worked for ACORN's voter registration arm in 1992, trained ACORN staff, represented ACORN as a lawyer in a 1993 lawsuit and paid an ACORN subsidiary more than $800,000 to turn out voters during the primaries.
Price downplayed any ties to ACORN, saying Obama was never an employee of the organization and that the campaign has not hired ACORN or any outside group for the general election. ACORN was one of many plaintiffs in the 1993 lawsuit filed to implement the Motor Voter Law, Price said.
"The fact that Obama may have had some tangential tie to ACORN, which I am not confirming, certainly is a long way from saying he may have been involved in anything untoward," said Chuck Ardo, a spokesman for Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, who is backing Obama.
Regarding Newman's charge of an unfair election, Abe Amoros, spokesman for the state Democratic Party, called it a "bogus allegation." He called it "part of a bigger effort to smear when you're down" by using "scare tactics."
Ardo said "fraudulent registrations being weeded out are a sign the system is working."
Marsico said he filed criminal charges against Luis R. Torres-Serrano, a former ACORN employee, for identity theft, tampering with records, false swearing and forgery. He was captured as a fugitive last weekend in York and is being held in Dauphin County Prison.
ACORN fired Torres-Serrano in June, according to Jackson.
Some people circulating voter registration forms for ACORN have criminal records and one circulator is a convicted sex offender featured on the Megan's Law Web site, the Republicans said.
"Nobody condones fraudulent voter registration forms," Amoros said. "We care as much about the integrity of the electoral process (as Republicans)."
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