WICU12

It's not just the candidates that have been making headlines this election year.

A group called ACORN is in the news after allegations that it's members are swamping election offices with bogus voter registration forms.  The allegations come from many areas of the country, but not from Erie.

"The Erie County Elections Office, as far as we know, hasn't had any dealings with ACORN in particular." said Doug Smith, Erie County Clerk of Elections.

That wasn't the case in Las Vegas, where police last week raided ACORN offices and left with computers and files. Voter registrations allegedly filed by ACORN in Nevada included the names of many non-residents, even the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys.

Smith says it's harder to get away with voter fraud in Pennsylvania.

"In other states, such as Ohio, they have early voting where mass duplications might allow more than one person to vote under different aliases." said Smith. "We have no similar thing here in Pennsylvania. We think a lot of the problems have to do with that, early voting or same day registration, those sorts of things, which allow a county really to be overwhelmed."

Officials with the McCain campaign are linking ACORN to Barack Obama. Obama staff members in Erie say no ACORN members dropped by their office.

"I've never even heard of the group ACORN, but we feel like it's probably the politics of distraction." said Andre Horton, Obama's Erie Volunteer Chairman.  "We've moved beyond voter registration and moving into the get out the vote phase of the campaign.'

ACORN did have a presence in Erie as late as 15 months ago, but it's former office on Peach Street is now vacant.  An ACORN web site still lists the Peach Street address and telephone number, even though the office has been closed.

ACORN was active in Erie for about two years. The organization focused mainly on low income housing issues.

John Last