$400 from every mortgage goes to Acorn

[snopes]

Comment: I received an e-mail from my cousin (who is reliable) today in
which he stated that he was listening to Glenn Beck yesterday. Glenn was
talking to a congressman from Texas who said that a law was passed a few
years ago that adds $400 to every mortgage taken out in the USA. This
$400 is then sent to ACORN, the group that has been registering voters
fraudulently in this election and has pressured banks in the past by dirty
tricks to give out loans to people who couldn't afford them.

It definitely wasn't a few years ago that the "law was passed."

It was REP John Culberson (R-Texas). He was on Glenn Beck on the 13th.

GLENN: Unbelievable. So now let's talk about ACORN. What is happening in Houston? There has been a couple of arrests in Houston and this is happening all across the country. Is there -- can we even trust this election, that there won't be massive voter fraud?

CONGRESSMAN CULBERSON: There is going to be voter fraud. We don't know how massive it is but no question, ACORN and other organizations like them are going to be a big part of it because they have pled guilty. I mean, ACORN has literally pled guilty to false -- to fraudulent voter registration. And in Houston we discovered there's about 4,000 dead people on the voter rolls here. It's going on around the country. We're the only nation I think on the face of the Earth that doesn't have a citizenship list, a citizenship roll that you can just check the database against voter rolls, and ACORN has a long history of this, Glenn. And, you know, that's particularly outrageous is that the mortgage bailout, the Freddie and Fannie Mae bailout bill which was done this August which I also voted against because that nationalized the mortgage industry, that bill, Barney Frank voted language in that bill this summer which hard wires $420 of a $100,000 mortgage to ACORN, La Raza and other organizations like --

GLENN: That's an outrage. Why didn't the American people know? That's an absolute outrage.

CONGRESSMAN CULBERSON: And it is forever. It bypass -- I'm on the appropriations committee. It bypasses appropriations, bypasses the congress, it's in your closing documents. This from day forward we will all be paying 4.2% basis fee of $420 for every $100,000 mortgage in your closing paper will have papers. You'll have a new little line in there, a new fee that we're going to all pay to go straight to these affordable housing funds which the states then hard wire to La Raza, ACORN, groups like that.

Heres the transcript:http://www.glennbeck.com/content/art...cle/196/16704/

I believe he is talking about the affordable housing "slush" fund that was in the original bailout bill but was scraped.

[lord_feldon]

I mean, ACORN has literally pled guilty to false -- to fraudulent voter registration.

I didn't realize organizations could plead guilty in court. Will they round up the office building and take it to jail now?

And in Houston we discovered there's about 4,000 dead people on the voter rolls here.

And that has to be fraud. Not poor records keeping or anything.

We're the only nation I think on the face of the Earth that doesn't have a citizenship list, a citizenship roll that you can just check the database against voter rolls, and ACORN has a long history of this, Glenn.

Uh huh.

[Dr. Dave]

This from day forward we will all be paying 4.2% basis fee of $420 for every $100,000 mortgage in your closing paper will have papers.

Setting aside that this sentence makes no sense, $420 on a 100K mortgage is 0.42% or 0.42 basis points, not 4.2.

[Ali Infree]

I don't claim to know what is happening with the Project Vote registration effort through ACORN. I know a little bit about its genesis.The later Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven were involved with George Wiley in the creation of the National Welfare Rights Organization. Wade Rathke was an NWRO organizer who felt that neighborhood groups with broader base of interest would be more sustainable--this was the basic origin of ACORN, the A stood for Arkansas originally.

Piven and Cloward spent time with ACORN on strategic issues, one of which was to increase the political clout of low income people by getting them registered and to the polls. As a group, low-income people tend to vote less. However, Piven and Cloward warned there would be a backlash against successful voter registration, which might demonstrate that the political process was not as open as we like to believe.

Opening voter registration up to allow people to register in more public offices happened as a result of the change in federal law. I have read some of the alleged Ohio abuses--one person registering many times, but apparently caught.

I believe that some people were possibly over-zealous, I would like to know more about how the Project Vote people were paid on the ground. I know in my days (25 years ago) with ACORN, we would have people petitioning to put initiatives on the ballot. Each petitioner would ask those signing to donate to help the effort. Usually that was the petitioner's wages, so a glib personable petitioner did much better. It is a terrible way to earn a living, but this was the ealry 1980s, and the economy was pretty awful.

However, I am from West Virginia, where dead people voting was once a civil right, long before ACORN. I still doubt that voter fraud is a significant factor anywhere in this country. Much of this is conservative pushback designed to discourage voters who they believe wil vote the "wrong" way.

Ali "West Virginia=Cook County, plus hills" Infree

[Ali Infree]

Ok, I found a link about the workers gathering voter registrations. And by the way, about the extent of illegal voting prosecuted federally.

Ali "oops" Infree

[Natalie]

So, I just learned something (minutes ago, in fact) and I am now really, really irritated at the way this ACORN thing is playing in the media. Voter registration organizations are not allowed to destroy fradulent voter registrations. They have to turn them in, no matter what.

This actually makes perfect sense in retrospect, but I'm amazed that the people flogging this non-story are getting away with ignoring a crucial reality of registering people to vote.


ETA: Ahhhh! Shouldn't have read the comments on the article Ali linked. Why do people comment on something that they clearly either didn't read or didn't understand?

[Chloe]

I'm also surprised by people missing the point that, if people collecting names make up voters for money, there is no threat whatsoever to the Democratic process, unless people masquerading as these made-up people try to vote. Simply having names on the rolls of made-up people or dead people won't make any difference.

[jimmy101_again]

Originally Posted by Chloe

I'm also surprised by people missing the point that, if people collecting names make up voters for money, there is no threat whatsoever to the Democratic process, unless people masquerading as these made-up people try to vote. Simply having names on the rolls of made-up people or dead people won't make any difference.

And, since more and more locations are requiring that voters produce a valid government issued ID when they vote, the affect of the invalid registrations is zero.

But hey, "voter fraud" is a much easier issue to talk about (since it basically doesn't exist) than something that matters, like a war, of medical costs, or the economy, or ...

[firefighter_raven]

actually in the state I live in voter registratiom fraud can effect certain parts of the election process in regards to tax ballot measures.
Thanks to some fast talking by an "anti-tax advocate" , we have what's called a super majority rule that states over 50% of the registered voters have to vote before it even counts. We've had many ballot measures concerning funding for schools, police, fire etc fail even with high % of votes supporting them due to inadequate voter turn out.
Ironically the anti-tax advocate's group was nailed for fraud for getting signatures for more initiatives