Seattle, Washington FBI Bureau File - Paperless Archives

Voter-registration workers charged with submitting bogus registrations
~ngfo pull a fast one on us, and creatiaroblems with registrations .... We wi.
~cials to do that."
Officials from ACORN's national office assisted in the investigation, prosecutors said.
Page 2 of2
working closely with county
ACORN has run into legal troubles in other states, including Colorado and Missouri, in which its workers were accused
ofturning in falsified registrations. .
Local right-wing bloggers and the conservative Business Industry Association of Washington have raised questions
about ACORN actions in the 2004 gubernatorial election, which Democrat Chris Gregoire won by 133 votes out of
more than 2.8 million cast statewide. They've suggested ACORN workers may have pressured elections officials into
counth?g bogus provisional ballots or may have forged signatures on post-Election Day affidavits verifying absentee
ballots, but no specific allegations surfaced in the Republican court challenge to Gregoire's victory, nor have any
criminal c,harges been filed against ACORN in the 2004 governor's race.
The current case involves workers from ACORN's Tacoma office. In October, the office turned in 1,805 voterregistration
cards to King County elections officials, just after the deadline to vote in the November election. The
registrations aroused suspicions because of similarities in handwriting for many signatures, a:ri elections department
spokeswoman has said.
Those suspicions led to the criminal investigation. Charged are canvassers Robert Greene, 56, of Tacoma; Clifton
Mitchell, 44, of Lakewood; Tina Johnson, 24, of Tacoma; Ryan' Olson, 28, of Needles, Calif.; Kendra Thill, 18, a
transient; and Jayson Woods, 19, of Elkridge, Md. Also charged was a supervisor in the office, Brianna Debwa, 35, of
Tacoma, who also faces a misdemeanor count of making a false statement to a government official~
In accordance with elections procedure, the registrations ACORN submitted were entered in the statewide electronic
database of voters, but flagged to require proof of identification should anyone signed up by them attempt to vote.
Officials then compared the names and other information with driver's license and Social Security records and
attempted to contact those voters when information did not match. Those attempts were fruitless, and officials
Thursday removed 1,762 of the names from the rolls.
Of the total of 1,805 names submitted by ACORN, nine were confmned as valid registrations and 34 are still under
investigation, the elections department spokeswoman said.
INSIDE
FELON VOTING: The state Supreme Court upheld the law requiring felons to pay all fines before they can regain the
right to vote. B3
P-I reporter Gregory Roberts can be reached at 206-448-8022 or gregoryroberts@Seattlepi.com.
© 1998-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
http://seattlepi.nwsource.comJprinter2/index.asp ?ploc=t&refer=http://seattlepLnwsource.comJloca1l32521. .. 7/27/2007