ACORN Cracked, Run Out of State Under RICO Act in Ohio

The wounded ACORN snake continues writhing. This time, the group has been barred from the entire state of Ohio, a swing state where the organization was very active in the last presidential election.

So active, in fact, it received an “Unsung Hero” award from the Communist Party USA for its “critical but generally unrecognized role of organized labor and grassroots voter registration efforts in winning Ohio for Barack Obama,” according to a document on ACORNcracked.com.

But now, ACORN has reached a settlement under the Ohio Corrupt Activities Act, similar to the federal RICO Act – the same law that’s used to prosecute mobsters and drug kingpins. Under the settlement, ACORN, along with Project Vote, agreed “to file a certificate permanently surrendering its business license in Ohio by June 1,” according to The Columbus Dispatch.

The next part of the settlement was critical: it bars ACORN from simply changing its name and moving back into the state. From the Dispatch:

The center’s lawyer, Maurice A. Thompson, said the settlement is mostly confidential but permanently bars ACORN from doing business in Ohio or reconstituting as another group and perpetuating its practices.

A 2008 press release from the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law said this:

Plaintiffs Jennifer Miller of Mason, Ohio and Kimberly Grant of Loveland, allege that ACORN’s actions deprived them of the right to participate in an honest and effective elections process. They allege fraudulent voter registrations submitted by ACORN dilute the votes of legally registered voters.

“The right to cast a vote that is not diluted by fraudulent votes is a fundamental individual right,” Buckeye Institute President David Hansen said.

“ACORN appears to be recklessly disregarding Ohio laws and adding thousands of fraudulent voters to the state’s roles in the process,” Maurice Thompson, Director of the Buckeye Institute’s 1851 Center for Constitutional Law said. “Such voter fraud erodes the value of legally cast votes,” he added.

The 1851 Center is no longer affiliated with the Buckeye Institute. A copy of the original court filing can be found here.

Despite the ruling, ACORN’s lawyer, Alfonse Gerhardstein, said that it didn’t mean much because it was inactive already “for reasons unrelated to this litigation.”

As ACORN reconstitutes itself in other states, watchdogs are tracking its every move and sounding the alarm so such activities don’t occur again.