Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Voter fraud charges collapse

Judges' rulings negate a fired worker's claims that the grass roots group ACORN mishandled voter registrations.

By JONI JAMES
Published December 15, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - Fourteen months after a campaign to increase Florida's minimum wage drew allegations of voter fraud, a federal judge in South Florida has ruled at least some of those accusations against grass roots political group ACORN were so baseless they amount to defamation.

U.S. District Judge James King has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Mac Stuart, a former ACORN employee, saying Stuart never provided evidence to support his claim that he was fired because he uncovered voter fraud.

Stuart alleged that ACORN improperly handled registration forms when it conducted voter registration drives, including not submitting Republican registrations to election officials.

The judge upheld ACORN's counterclaim that Stuart's lack of evidence made his allegations libel and slander. The group has always claimed it fired Stuart for insubordination.

No financial settlement has been reached in the case. But ACORN officials said Wednesday they were pleased to have the last of three lawsuits, all withdrawn or dismissed, behind them.

An investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement also found no evidence of criminal activity at ACORN, department officials confirmed Wednesday.

"We are very happy it was found that we are innocent," said Tamecka Pierce, a certified nursing assistant who volunteers as ACORN's Florida chairwoman. "We have zero tolerance for fraud."

The resolution comes more than a year after ACORN outmaneuvered Florida's business community and Republican leadership to place a successful citizen petition on the ballot to raise Florida's minimum wage in May from $5.15 to $6.15 an hour.

The state constitutional amendment, approved by 71 percent of voters, also sets a process to adjust the wage annually for inflation.

But a month before voters went to the polls, criticism of ACORN mounted. Stuart filed his lawsuit; the Department of Law Enforcement took the unusual step of publicizing the fact it was investigating ACORN; and another lawsuit filed in state court in Tallahassee, but later withdrawn, alleged the group committed fraud in collecting petitions for the ballot measure.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez dismissed with prejudice a third lawsuit, which also had ties to Stuart.

The 12 plaintiffs alleged ACORN had failed to file their voter registration applications, which made them ineligible to vote in 2004. Stuart had provided the plaintiffs' attorneys with the applications.

Martinez dismissed the suit after 10 plaintiffs withdrew and the only remaining ones were a felon, not allowed to vote under Florida law, and a person who had moved to New Jersey, said ACORN attorney Brian Koch of Miami.

The lead plaintiffs' attorney in both federal cases, Stuart Rosenfeldt of Fort Lauderdale, couldn't be reached Wednesday.

"ACORN is an organization that has gone and attempted to help the low- and moderate-income communities of this state and for that they were attacked," Koch said. "This should vindicate ACORN of any wrongdoing."

ACORN, which stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, claims to have registered more than 1.1-million voters nationwide in 2004, 210,000 of them in Florida.

Joni James can be reached at 850 224-7263 or jjames@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 15, 2005, 00:50:29]