Arrest made in GOP voter registration scandal

Mark Jacoby, the president of a GOP signature-gathering firm accused of tricking California voters into registering as Republicans under the guise of signing a petition to keep pedophiles in jail, has been arrested in Ontario, CA on suspicion of voter fraud.

Jacoby's paid signature-gatherers are accused of actively deceiving Californians while YPM was under contract to the Republican Party.

An astonishing eighty percent of a random sample of voters registered by YPM in California told the LA Times that they had been tricked into registering as Republicans. YPM has registered 70,000 voters as Republicans in California in this election cycle alone.

It is not clear why YPM canvassers appear to have systematically misled would-be voters with a standardized questionnaire.

Perhaps the firm simply hoped to collect the $7-$12 bounty the GOP was offering for registrations.

There's also a more sinister and logically compatible possibility: Miscategorizing flesh and blood voting Democrats as Republicans could disrupt Democratic GOTV efforts, which are based in part on voter registration lists. These Democrats might miss out on literature, visits from canvassers, and other attention from the Obama campaign.

YPM has been also been accused of underhanded voter registration techniques in other states, including Florida and Arizona.

John McCain claimed last week that the liberal-leaning ACORN was attempting to perpetrate one of the greatest voter frauds in the history of America, a crime so vast it could destroy the very fabric of our democracy. McCain was alluding to a few thousand questionable voter registrations turned in by ACORN's paid signature-gatherers.

The McCain campaign and their surrogates have been aggressively pushing charges that ACORN itself was advancing its liberal agenda with these dubious registrations.

In fact, the signature-gatherers were taking advantage of ACORN by registering fictional voters and re-registering people who were already signed up to vote. These workers were trying to meet quotas in order to get paid for work they didn't do. Their deception deprived ACORN of the work it was paying for, namely, registering real poor people to vote.

ACORN turned in these questionable forms despite reservations about the veracity of registrations for "Mickey Mouse" and the starting lineup of a football team because it was legally required to do so.

Groups that register voters must turn in all the forms they get in order to prevent unscrupulous actors from throwing away forms from individuals they view as politically unsympathetic. In most cases, ACORN itself alerted the authorities to questionable submissions.

The charges against Jacoby and YPM, if true, are far more serious than any of the allegations against ACORN.

The ACORN canvassers were registering fictional characters who couldn't possibly show up to vote--especially not with the new federal photo ID requirements. There's no way ACORN instructed its canvassers to register fictional characters. Phony registrations were undermining ACORN's mission, not advancing it.

Whereas, YPM canvassers allegedly lied to real-life voters in order to register them against their will. This deception might affect the outcome election if it interfered with GOTV efforts by the Obama camp or future Democratic campaigns.

Comments

[Steve]

This could be the greatest fraud ever perpetrated upon the American people, it could be the unraveling of our democratic system. Did I get that right? I'd say this clearly tops what could at worst be called oversight by ACORN. Nice job GOP.

[seeger]

What a perfect description of the Republican neo-cons.

In the words of Vice President Henry Wallace in 1944:

"The really dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.

They claim to be super patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise but are spokesman for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjugation.”

[Evan]

Nice job Lindsay! Let's see if the MSM pick this up to the extent the ACORN mole hill was pumped up into a paper mache mountain. I'll bookmark Majikthise and check back.

[JOJO]

tHIS SENDES MCANE ACUSATION FOR ACORN THROGH THE WINDOW THINGS ARE NOT BECOMING EASY FOR McCANE THESE DAYS!!!

[Stu]

I love how Liberals never see the irony of their own statements. Re-read what seeger wrote and replace the Republican "they" in your head (if you can) with a Democratic "they." The difference is, this is the exact VOTER FRAUD that the Reps are complaining about. Very good find indeed. Now please condemn the same types of tactics when used to further your political viewpoint. Thank you.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Stu, did you read my post?

I did condemn the ACORN canvassers who registered fictional characters. They're cheating ACORN and unwittingly wreaking havoc. That's wrong and bad.

I'm not condemning ACORN, let alone Obama, as the McCain campaign is trying to do.

ACORN didn't tell its canvassers to deceive anyone and the Obama campaign had nothing to do with the voter registration drives that are under investigation.

McCain and Palin are lying about Obama and ACORN. Condemn that.

[mrs panstreppon]

Mark Jacoby and YPM have been up to no good in Arizona this year, according to an 8/11/08 Phoenix New Times story by Sarah Fendt.

"...Worst of all, Bickley alleges, piles of petitions and voter registration cards were collected but never turned in. Thousands of Arizona residents may believe they're registered to vote, Bickley says, even as their registrations gathered dust. Once the subs who'd promised payment skipped town, no one knew what to do with them...

But I think it may be a problem involving lousy subcontractors. Everybody in town seems to have used YPM LLC, a Florida-based company owned by Mark Jacoby. And Jacoby's group is at the center of Jack Bickley's most damning allegations. (Jacoby, who has left town, did not return calls for comment by press time.)

Bickley says that Jacoby encouraged, and even expected, behavior that could well be criminal under Arizona statutes.

Jacoby, he says, had a system where a trainer would be assigned as many as six new circulators. Even though the trainer would be nowhere near the circulators while they collected signatures, he would still sign the back of their petitions, attesting that he'd personally witnessed them.

"The person who signed the back was not present when the petitions were signed," Bickley says. "How could he be? He had five or six people working under him at different spots around town."

Both Jacoby and Jenny Breslin, who owns JSM LLC, served as subcontractors on all the initiatives handled by Petition Partners. (They also contracted on the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative.)..."

Mark Jacoby first registered YPM LLC in Florida in August 2004 and almost immediaely got in trouble with Florida authorities, according to a 10/23/04 St Petersburg Times story.

Jacoby appears to have gotten his start picking up the work from Nathan Sproul who owned Sproul Associates at the time (see Wiki). That year, according to Mark Crispin Miller in his book, "Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election", the GOP paid Sproul something like $8 million to register Republican voters. (Google has an excerpt of the chapter on Sproul on p. 154. Sproul was accused of tossing Democratic voter registrations but the charges never stuck.

Jaocby only represents a tiny portion of a massive GOP movement to disenfranchise Democrats at the polls this year.

[B-money]

Lindsay, they are all lying in some way shape or form. It's a campaign. McCain is spinning the ACORN thing out of control while Obama is misrepresenting his tax plan. As it goes. Why this is shocking to people is what shocks me. Have you people never paid attention to an election? Hell, I am following a local election here, and the slander and lying is far worse than the POTUS election, and this is merely for a County Board seat!

[swampcracker]

Lindsay, according to my experience, trying to engage a wingnut in a sane discussion is not worth even a moment of time. All one gets are outrageous denials of fact, platitudes and certitudes, or irrelevant digressions. Stu, or stew, should just pound sand.

[Reality Fungus]

Do you really want to get into the comparison game?

Do you really want to compare the decades national ACORN deceit and some jerk in California?

Do you really want to draw attention to the half century of southern Democrat gerrymandering designed to disenfranchise minority voters?

Let's not cast too many stones or forget that Bull Connor was a Democrat and the KKK was formed as the armed wing of the Democrat party.

The GOP has the same miserable record- and that record is no worse than the Dems. To pretend

While no American in politics has clean hands, let's remember that politics us in the end, all about consensus. Forget that and we all end the poorer for it- and we get the government we deserve.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

RF, next you'll be telling me that ACORN is a Dixiecrat outfit that turned hoses on folks in Mississippi.

The entire historical Democratic party isn't running for election on November 4. Nor is ACORN. McCain dragged this stinking "voter (registration) fraud" red herring into campaign. So, if you want to make comparisons, keep 'em coming.

Mark Jacoby's outfit registered 70,000 voters in CA, 80% of a random sub-sample of those voters said they were tricked into signing up. YPM was under direct contract to the GOP when these registrations occurred.

So, Jacoby might be responsible for as many dubious registrations in California alone as all the contested ACORN registrations nationwide.

[ballgame]

Great post as usual, Lindsay.

[King Soloman]

Your an idiot and have no idea as to what has transpired with this voter registration drive. YPM has a systematic approach to how this registration drive is handled. It is no one's fault that these idiots who register with YPM cannot read, the huge letterhead @ the top of a registration card that says CALIFORNIA VOTER REGISTRATION CARD, where they not only bubble in Republican and initial next to it, but also sign an affidavit that says; " I was not forced, bribed, or correrced into registering as a Republican. No one has ever been told, that they have to register as a Republican to sign a publisite. Because, that would be just wrong. So before writing an editoral, please do your research and not take the word of the kind of people that, if these accusations were true would not stop dead in their tracks and say "NO!"

[cfrost]

Let's not cast too many stones or forget that Bull Connor was a Democrat and the KKK was formed as the armed wing of the Democrat party.

Yo, Rip van Winkle, check the calendar.
You'd better brace yourself; a few changes have occurred since you fell asleep in the early fifties.

[My Reply]

Hey SoloMan: Before you tell people they are idiots for notdoing their research, do some yourself. Here's a few research items to checkout:

First read this:
"Mark Anthony Jacoby, who owns the firm known as Young Political Majors (YPM), was arrested after allegedly registering himself to vote, once in 2006 and again in 2007, at an address where did not live." - www.bradblog.com/?p=6534

Now look at YEARS of these problems with YPM:

1. 2004 in Florida - www.sptimes.com/2004/10/23/news_pf/Hillsborough/Students_complain_of_.shtml

2. 2005 in Massachusetts - knowthyneighbor.blogs.com/home/2005/10/petition_worker.html

3. 2008 in California - reconstitution.us/rcnew/?p=2593

[Reality Fungus]

ACORN has decades of fraudulent voter registration under it's belt and this year, ACORN organizers have actually voted illegally.

Speaking of the 'systematic abuse' of voting irregularities without putting ACORN at the top of the pile is like talking about terrorism and equating the Palestinians and the Israelis. Whatever your beliefs, insisting on an equivalence, moral and otherwise only highlights one of two things: Either there is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the truth or there is a complete lack of understanding of the situation.

In point of fact, ACORN did register real voters on numerous occasions (read: thousands), with fictitious addresses, social security numbers and other fraudulent data.

My point here is to make known that voter fraud issues are part a larger contempt in which all politicians and political parties hold voters in this nation. No one side has clean hands or moral authority of over the other. To make such assertions is absurd and only contributes to and exacerbates the problem.

The voting system is broken and everybody had a hand in it. The effort ought to be on fixing the problem.

Those who say the issue is the fault of one side or the other doesn't speak well of their intent or intellect.

[Alon Levy]

Speaking of the 'systematic abuse' of voting irregularities without putting ACORN at the top of the pile is like talking about terrorism and equating the Palestinians and the Israelis.

And posting shrill garbage like this without a link on any place that lies to the left of LGF is like going to a mosque and quoting Michelle Malkin on Islam. In both cases, it suggests you like posturing and listening to your own voice more than you like convincing people.

[Reality Fungus]

I'm sorry- besides your obtuse references, how exactly is my analogy inappropriate?

Simply making assertions without substance only highlights the lightness of your argument.

If you have a case, make it.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

RF, if you want to be taken seriously, you need to come up with two things: 1) An argument about why ACORN's alleged history of misbehavior is relevant to the discussion of Mark Jacoby and the presidential race of 2008. 2) Evidence of said misbehavior. I bet you can't manage either one, or you would have done so already.

Soloman, most of the voters interviewed by the LAT dispute your account of how the paperwork was set up. I'd believe all of them before I would believe you. You seem ill-informed and hysterical, frankly. Not to mention defensive.

[Reality Fungus]

The Mark Jacoby issue is not relevant is not relevant to ACORN. Each represents the worst in political manipulation

That said, to pretend ACORN doesn't present an equally, if not more disturbing example of politically motivated fraud.

As for evidence of fraud, there are already at least 2 open FBI investigations pertaining to voter fraud and at least 2 ACORN organizers voted illegally in Ohio- one of whom is now in the UK and has said he has no intention of returning, etc. If you want chapter and verse on voter fraud, a simple google search ought to satisfy your curiosity.

Again, to say that one side or the other is morally superior is to perpetuate the failure of politics as usual.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

John McCain and Sarah Palin are hammering ACORN 24/7 as a campaign issue, as if it reflects on Obama. So, when a firm contracted to the GOP is caught deceiving more voters in a single state than there were dubious ACORN-generated registration cards in the entire country, you better believe it's relevant by McCain/Palin standards.

You've mentioned two cases of ACORN people voting illegally, that doesn't add up to decades of deception. You're just repeating a talking point. You don't know that ACORN has been engaging in voter fraud for decades, you're just saying that because you heard in on talk radio or something. If you knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't have to refer me to Google.

[Alon Levy]

RF, I still can't see what kind of voter fraud the KKK is engaged in on Obama's behalf, but as long as one of us can...

[B-Money]

"The entire historical Democratic party isn't running for election on November 4." - LB

I agree. Nor is the the entire historical Republican Party. Maybe remind yourself, and your fan base here about that.

ACORN is sleazy, as we have noted. YPM is now criminal in its actions. ACORN is being investigated by the FBI, which really means that the wonks in the DOJ are probably following orders from higher up the political food chain to try and validate McCain.

The GOP is desperate, if this is the tact it is taking with 2 weeks to go. Joe the Plumber and ACORN. Wow, way to focus on the issues GOP. How about schools, roads, infrastructure, energy, health care, foreign policy, etc. Oh no, let's discuss BS! And some people wonder why we need a change. Not that I am all too excited about the DNC taking power and attaining a super majority in Congress as well. But how can it be any worse?

[mindtron]

If ACORN has been perpetrating voter fraud for decades, why did McCain give a keynote address at a conference they hosted in 2006?

And why did the DOJ work with Obama when he represented them in the Illinois motor voter case?

And who thinks that someone is going to show up in Ohio with a license in the name of Mickey Mouse or Tony Romo to vote? If these fake people don't show up and vote, explain to me how fraud has been committed?

[parse]

If ACORN has been perpetrating voter fraud for decades, why did McCain give a keynote address at a conference they hosted in 2006?

Do you really have to ask?