An announcement from the community organizing group Acorn this month that they had registered 1.3 million new voters was an overstatement, according to the New York Times.

Voter fraud allegations by John McCain and Republican Party officials in recent days appear intended to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Nov. 4 presidential election.

Although the Republicans don’t say this, their comments could be aimed at several goals, experts said, ranging from simply energizing their conservative base to laying the groundwork for possible election challenges.

In any case, spokesmen for both the national Republican Party and the McCain campaign don’t deny the implication that their comments raise questions about the legitimacy of the election outcome.

“I hope the election does not have this problem,” said McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, when asked Friday whether he was suggesting the election outcome could be illegitimate. “We’ve got 18 days. We think
John McCain could win this election, and we don’t want a pall cast on it.”

Meanwhile, the Barack Obama campaign charged Friday that the U.S. Justice Department is collaborating with the GOP in seeking to create doubt about the validity of the election process.

That accusation, from Obama campaign general counsel Bob Bauer, was based on a news story leaked from the Justice Department, saying that the FBI was investigating charges of voter fraud against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, a liberal group that has done voter registration work nationwide.

Because the leak violated Justice Department policy, and because of the lack of significant evidence of vote fraud involving ACORN, Bauer said, the department appears to be succumbing to political pressure to hype the accusations.

He called it a repeat of the Justice Department’s politically motivated firing of U.S. attorneys in 2006. An inspector general’s report concluded they were fired because they had displeased Republicans by not prosecuting allegations of corruption and voter fraud against Democrats.

Bauer called it “an unholy alliance of law enforcement and the worst kind of politics,” and said the inspector general’s probe should be expanded to include the leak and all allegations of voter fraud and voter suppression.

A McCain campaign spokesman called the accusation “outrageous,” “absurd,” and “almost a parody of the Obama campaign’s attempt to intimidate their political opponents.”

There have been several state investigations into voter registration forms submitted by ACORN, which sometimes pays registrants to get prospective voters to fill out and sign forms. ACORN acknowledges its workers have sometimes falsified forms to get paid without doing the work.

In probably the worst case so far, prosecutors in Washington state charged seven ACORN employees with turning in more than 1,800 phony registration forms in 2006.

King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg emphasized the defendants’ aim was to get paid, not influence elections, and the workers were cheating ACORN. None of the phony forms led to illegal voting.

He said ACORN applied “lax oversight,” and the organization signed a consent decree promising better oversight.

ACORN says that in some cases it has alerted elections officials when it suspected workers were turning in falsified forms, but that once it receives the forms, it’s legally required to turn them in.

Because of checks by elections officials, if a fraudulent form is submitted, that doesn’t mean a voter will be registered or vote illegally.

A 2007 report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law examined recent claims of fraud made by parties, elections officials, journalists and bloggers, and concluded, “We are aware of no recent substantiated case in which registration fraud has resulted in fraudulent votes being cast.”
Nonetheless, McCain, his top campaign aides and Republicans have repeatedly suggested that ACORN’s work threatens the legitimacy of the election.

They’ve criticized Obama for his links to ACORN, including having represented the organization in a court case, and having paid an affiliate for work on his campaign.

In Wednesday’s debate, McCain said ACORN “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history, … maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” He added in a TV interview that “several thousand votes could obviously tip the entire huge state of Florida.”

In a news conference call with reporters Friday, Davis said “rampant voter fraud” has created a “cloud of suspicion that seems to right now hang over this election.”

In a conference call Thursday that focused on what they said was extensive election fraud in Florida, Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz and counsel Sean Cairncross accused ACORN of “attempting to subvert our election system and election laws” and “trying to defraud the electoral system,” in Diaz’s words.

Even McCain allies consider these accusations overblown.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Secretary of State Kurt Browning have both denied there are any significant problems with ACORN voter registration activities in Florida, and Diaz and Cairncross couldn’t give any figures indicating there were; they pointed to one form signed by “Mickey Mouse.”

Browning has said he has a good impression of ACORN, and that there have been only scattered incidents of problems in its registration work.

Crist pooh-poohed the allegations of fraud, saying there’s “less than is being discussed. As we’re coming into the closing days of any campaign, there are some who sort of enjoy chaos.”

Asked whether Diaz and Cairncross were suggesting the results of the Florida election might be tainted, RNC officials wouldn’t respond on the record. One party official, asking not to be named, responded only,

“ACORN’s activities have the effect of undermining confidence in the integrity of the election process.”
University of Central Florida political scientist Aubrey Jewett said there could be several motives behind the accusations by McCain and his allies: to “rally the conservative base”; to create pressure for elections officials to scrutinize and possibly toss ACORN’s voter registrations, which focus on Obama-leaning young and minority voters; or to lay groundwork for a legal challenge of the outcome.

“If it came down to as close as in 2000, or to just one or two states with close votes, then it could be trying to plant the seed for a challenge,” he said.

BANGOR, Maine – Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, campaigning with an eye on winning at least one of Maine’s electoral votes, criticized Democrat Barack Obama on Thursday for not disavowing a community activist group that registers voters.
 
The group known as ACORN – the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now – has drawn condemnation from the Republican ticket as its workers sign up voters in swing states. Nearly a dozen states and the FBI are looking into allegations of voter registration fraud.
 
ACORN officials have denied allegations of concerted, widespread fraud but acknowledge that some of the group’s registration workers might have turned in duplicate applications or falsified information to pad their pay. ACORN says it it has registered 1.3 million young people, minorities, and poor and working-class voters.

“In this election, it’s a choice between a candidate who won’t disavow a group committing voter fraud, and a leader who won’t tolerate voter fraud,” Palin said.

In the debate Wednesday night with Republican John McCain, Obama denied any significant ties to ACORN. Earlier this week, Obama said ACORN was not advising his campaign and that registration problems shouldn’t be used as an excuse to keep people from turning out.
 
Palin stuck to familiar themes of limited government, lower taxes and gun rights and listed energy and government reform among her top priorities. She said the people of Maine know that taxes – the state has some of the nation’s highest – are not the way to “grow the economy.”

Her visit came as the Republican National Committee has decided to stop running presidential ads in Maine to focus on usually Republican states where McCain shows signs of faltering. McCain is still running ads in the state.

Palin also made reference to a remark early in the campaign by Obama’s wife, Michelle, who had said that “for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country.” The governor’s comments came after country music star Lee Greenwood sang the “The Star Spangled Banner” and “God Bless the USA.”

“We believe also that there is a reason we all get teared-up when we hear Lee Greenwood sing about America, because we love America and we are always proud of being Americans,” she said. “And we don’t apologize for being Americans.”

Maine and Nebraska are the only two states that allocate electoral votes in part by congressional district. Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, with its lakes and forests, is popular for fishing, hunting and snowmobiling, pursuits shared by the Alaska governor herself.

“I feel like I’m at home,” Palin told about 6,000 people in a hangar at the Bangor International Airport. “I see the Carhartts and the steel-toed boots … and the NRA hats,” she said, referring to the work clothes brand and the National Rifle Association.

In a close race, Republicans can’t afford to write off a single electoral vote, and they hope that a strong showing in the 2nd District will help them sweep the entire state, where unenrolled or “independent” voters comprise the largest bloc of voters.

Maine last voted for a Republican for president in 1988, when Kennebunkport summer resident George H.W. Bush won the state. And political scientists say that’s unlikely to change, even if McCain and Palin manage to carry the 2nd District.

Democrats have more than 30 offices set up across the state to promote Obama’s presidential bid and other candidates, according to campaign officials.

By Liz Kravitz, NBC17 Reporter

DURHAM, N.C. — Suspected fraudulent voter registration forms have been turning up in North Carolina.