NAACP NATIONAL VOTER FUND BACKGROUNDER
March 2005
General Information
NAACP National
Voter Fund Is A 501(c) 4 Group Created By NAACP To “Advance The Cause Of Civil
Rights” Through “Nonpartisan Advocacy Activities, Such As Voter Registration
And Get Out The Vote Efforts, Issue Advocacy, And Lobbying.” “THE NAACP NATIONAL VOTER FUND (NVF) is a
separate organization created by the NAACP to advance the cause of civil
rights. NVF primarily engages in nonpartisan advocacy activities, such as voter
registration and get out the vote efforts, issue advocacy, and lobbying. NVF
has been recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt
organization under Section 501 (c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code.” (NAACP
National Voter Fund Website, http://www.naacpnvf.org/c_about.intro.nvf_facts.php,
Accessed 3/13/05)
Gregory Moore Is
Executive Director Of NAACP National Voter Fund, Previously Served As Chief Of
Staff To Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) And Deputy Political Director For The
Democratic National Committee.
(NAACP National Voter Fund Website, http://www.naacpnvf.org/c_bio_gtm.php,
Accessed 3/13/05)
ü Moore On 2004 Election: “I’ve Never Seen
This Level Of Focus On An Election, Not This Early. The Activity Around
Registration And Mobilization Is Unprecedented.” (Larry Eichel, “The Right
To Vote, And Its Exercise, Still Key To NAACP,” The Philadelphia Inquirer,
7/11/04)
Former NAACP
President Kweisi Mfume Serves As Chair Of NAACP National Voter Fund’s Board Of
Directors, While NAACP Chairman Julian Bond Is Development Committee Chair. (NAACP National Voter
Fund Website, http://www.naacpnvf.org/c_about_nvf_afe.php,
Accessed 3/13/05)
NAACP Is Member
Of Win Without War Coalition, Which Ran Ads Labeling President Bush A
“Misleader.” “Taking a
similar tack is Win Without War, a coalition composed of mainstream labor and
religious organizations, the NAACP and the National Organization for Women. On
Monday, it began a television ad campaign in New York and Washington accusing
Bush of misleading the country with claims about Iraq’s arsenal. The spot
features the word ‘Misleader’ written across the president’s face. Next week, a
print version of the ad will run in newspapers across Iowa, site of one of the
early presidential caucuses, as well as in swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio
and West Virginia.” (Joe Garofoli, “Peace Groups Trying To
Rekindle Anti-Bush Passions,” San Francisco Chronicle, 7/17/03)
NAACP National
Voter Fund Registered 225,000 New Voters Nationwide In 2004 Cycle, Including
Over 83,000 In Ohio. “NVF
has registered 225,000 new voters nationwide as part of its Empowerment 2004
campaign, including over 83,000 new voters in Ohio.” (NAACP
National Voter Fund, “NAACP Chairman Julian Bond Headlines Get-Out-The-Vote
Rally/Town Hall Meeting,” Press Release, 10/29/04)
NAACP National
Voter Fund Planned To Be On Ground In Seven To Nine Battleground States, Had
Goal Of Registering And Turning Out 250,000 New Voters. “The NAACP National Voter Fund (NVF) is
focused on the critical 2004 election cycle. Organized under the banner
‘Empowerment 2004,’ NVF seeks to repeat or surpass the success of its historic
2000 voter mobilization efforts. … NVF Empowerment 2004 Voter Contact Programs
will conduct on-the ground voter education and mobilization campaigns in seven
to nine ‘battleground’ states. Beginning August 2003, NVF plans to register and
turnout 250,000 new voters through its state mobilization campaigns, its web
site naacpnvf.org, and NVF and collaborator-sponsored special events. NVF
Empowerment 2004 Mobilization and Advocacy Grant Program will continue to
provide much needed resources to NAACP state and local affiliates and other
coalition partners. NVF will also conduct training and technical assistance for
recipient groups, implement web-based field monitoring and communications
systems to ensure more efficient utilization of resources, and establish
regional support structure for state field operations.” (NAACP
National Voter Fund Website, http://www.naacpnvf.org/c_emp2004strat.php,
Accessed 2/18/04)
NAACP National
Voter Fund Is A Founding Member Of America Votes Coalition, A New 527
Organization Coordinating Election Activity Of Many Liberal Interest Groups. “America Votes has the potential to replace
the Democratic Party as the center of liberal efforts. It will be governed by a
top-flight list of Democratic insiders. President Cecile Richards, daughter of
former Texas Governor Ann Richards, is a former deputy chief of staff to House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Founders include AFL-CIO President
John Sweeney, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and Gregory T. Moore,
executive director of the NAACP National Voter Fund. The goal is to turn out
the vote in swing states such as New Mexico, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire,
and West Virginia. Member groups will share polling data, research, and mailing
lists, including ‘Demzilla,’ the Democratic National Committee’s massive voter
data bank.” (Lorraine Woellert, “The Evolution Of Campaign
Finance?” BusinessWeek, 9/15/03)
Hundreds Of
Questionable Voter-Registration Applications Submitted By America Votes
Coalition Members Were Challenged By Law Enforcement And Election Authorities
In Key Swing States.
“America Votes, which represents a collection of labor unions, trial lawyers,
environmental groups and community organizations representing 20 million
Americans, describes itself as a ‘nonpartisan political organization’ that
seeks to use the strategic abilities and large membership base of its coalition
members to ‘break new ground in electoral politics.’ Its goal is to
‘register, educate and mobilize’ voters for this year’s elections, but some of
those efforts are now being challenged. Hundreds of questionable
voter-registration applications, such as duplicates, and accusations of workers
shredding registrations in favor of one party are under review by local, state
and federal law-enforcement and election authorities in Colorado, New Mexico,
Nevada, Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, West Virginia, Oregon, Ohio, Arizona,
Pennsylvania and Florida. The coalition spent more than $100 million on its
voter-registration campaign, according to financial records and several people
familiar with the member organizations. Despite its nonpartisan claim, its
membership includes 32 groups committed to Mr. Bush’s defeat.” (Jerry
Seper, “Soros-Supported Voter-Registration Drive Probed,” The Washington
Times, 10/20/04)
NAACP Contacted
By Clark County In Regard To “Problems With Voter Registration Cards.” “At least one group, the NAACP, has been
notified by [Clark County Registrar Larry] Lomax about the problems with voter
registration cards. Dean Ishman,
president of the local branch of the NAACP, said he met with Lomax and
determined that some people affiliated with the group had registered voters
with their permission but failed to correctly fill out a box that indicates the
voter did not fill out the form.” (Kirsten
Searer, “Extent Of Voter Fraud In County Unknown,” Las Vegas Sun,
7/21/04)
In Defiance
County, NAACP National Voter Fund Worker Paid Man In Crack Cocaine For At Least
130 Fraudulent Voter Registration Applications For Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy And
Other False Identities. “Mary
Poppins. Jeffrey Dahmer. Janet Jackson. Chad Staton. Defiance County elections
officials were confident the first three hadn’t moved to their small community.
But the fourth one lived there, and – in exchange for crack cocaine – tried to
falsely submit the first three names and more than 100 others onto the county’s
voter registration rolls, police said. Now Mr. Staton, 22, of Defiance,
faces a felony charge of false registration in a case that has quickly gained
national attention as part of a hotly contested presidential battle that’s
attracted a flurry of new voter registrations across the country – and a flurry
of complaints of voter registration fraud. Defiance County Sheriff David
Westrick said that Mr. Staton was working on behalf of a Toledo woman,
Georgianne Pitts, to register new voters. She, in turn, was working on behalf
of the NAACP National Voter Fund, which was formed by the NAACP in 2000 to
register new voters. Sheriff Westrick said that Pitts, 41, of Toledo, admitted
she gave Mr. Staton crack cocaine in lieu of cash for supplying her with
completed voter registration forms. The sheriff declined to say how much
crack cocaine Pitts supplied Mr. Staton, or to say whether Pitts knew that the
forms Mr. Staton gave her were falsified. … Mr. Staton’s 130 voter registration
forms were among the 80,000 submitted to state officials by The National Voter
Fund’s Ohio office, based in Cleveland. The fund turned in Mr. Staton’s
completed forms to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, elections officials
said. Of the 130 forms submitted, county elections board director Wayne Olsson
said that only six turned out to be legitimate. … Within an hour, Defiance
County elections workers had deduced that the batch of 130 was mostly faked
forms, said Laura Howell, the county elections board’s deputy director. ‘We
could tell by the handwriting that many of them were written by the same
person,’ she said. ‘And of course we know the streets. Defiance being a small
town, many of [the forms] had streets not even in Defiance.’ And so elections workers
immediately began sending out letters, addressed to the people listed at those
addresses, as a precaution to ensure that a Mary Poppins, a Jeffrey Dahmer, or
a Janet Jackson didn’t, in fact, live in Defiance County, she said. Letters
also went out to George Foreman, Brett Favre, Michael Jordan, and Dick Tracy,
among others in the bundle to see if the post office would return them as
undeliverable.” (Joe Mahr, “Voter Fraud Case Traced To Volunteer,”
Toledo Blade, 10/19/04)
Woman Who Paid
Worker In Crack Cocaine Was Recruited By Thaddeus Jackson, Ohio Director Of
NAACP National Voter Fund, Who Submitted Suspicious Voter Registration Cards In
Cuyahoga County Earlier In The Year. “The
occupant of the house, Georgianne Pitts, 41, told investigators that she was
recruited for the voter registration drive by Thaddeus Jackson, Ohio director
of the NAACP’s National Voter Fund. It was not the first time Jackson’s name
has come up in connection with election irregularities. Earlier this year, the
Cuyahoga County Board of Elections questioned 17 registration cards that
Jackson turned in because the signatures on all 17 cards appeared similar. He
blamed the problem on subordinates.” (John P. Coyne, “Vote
Fraud & Crack: A Case For Dick Tracy?” [Cleveland] Plain Dealer,
10/19/04)
ü “In 1992, Jackson Resigned As Chairman Of
The Cuyahoga County Board Of Elections And Later Pleaded Guilty To Accepting
Improper Compensation While Board Chairman.” (John P. Coyne, “Vote Fraud & Crack: A Case For
Dick Tracy?” [Cleveland] Plain Dealer, 10/19/04)
Mahoning County
Flagged 48 Voter Registration Cards Submitted By NAACP, People Said “I Didn’t
Sign That Card.” “In
Mahoning County, Elections Director Michael Sciortino said he has flagged 48
voter registration cards that were part of a group of about 325 submitted by
the NAACP in Cleveland. … Sciortino said the registration cards
originated from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. Many appeared to be in
the same handwriting, and as his staff has attempted to verify them, they have
been told repeatedly, ‘I didn’t sign that card,’ he said.” (Lisa A. Abraham,
“Suspicious Voter Cards Are Piling Up,” Akron Beacon Journal, 9/29/04)
NAACP National
Voter Fund’s Gregory Moore Alleged Republican Voter Intimidation Efforts Before
Election Day. “‘There are
forces across this state, very powerful people, trying to suppress and
intimidate the minority community from voting,’ said Greg Moore, executive
director of the NAACP National Voter Fund (NVF). … ‘Charges of voter fraud,
partisan poll watchers and other tactics like the use of provisional ballots,
designed to ensure no legitimate voter is turned away from the polls, are
likely to become a tool for suppressing minority votes next week,’ said Moore.
Party officials in a number of states have assembled teams of lawyers to
challenge provisional ballots, writes Spencer Overton, a professor at George
Washington University Law School in a white paper released this week. He
predicts that many provisional ballots cast by legitimate voters – especially
minority voters – will be discarded or otherwise go uncounted as a result of
these challenges. ‘That process has already begun, as the Ohio Republican Party
challenged the validity of over 35,000 voter registrations in the state,’ said
Moore.” (NAACP National Voter Fund, “NAACP Chairman Julian
Bond Headlines Get-Out-The-Vote Rally/Town Hall Meeting,” Press Release,
10/29/04)
NAACP National
Voter Fund Called For Recount In Ohio.
“The NAACP National Voter Fund joins in solidarity with CASE, the Free Press,
National Voting Rights Institute, and many other groups as we seek a recount of
all the votes cast on November 2, 2004 in the state of Ohio …” (NAACP
National Voter Fund, “Statement Of Greg Moore, Executive Director NAACP
National Voter Fund To The House Judiciary Committee Democratic Members
Election Protection Hearings,” Press Release, 12/13/04)
NAACP National
Voter Fund’s Gregory Moore Appeared At January 5 Press Conference Where
Participants Alleged That “There Is Clear And Compelling Evidence That The
Election Was Stolen.”
“There is clear and compelling evidence that the election was stolen. … Crucial
flaws in the national vote count, most importantly in the national popular
vote, and in Ohio and Florida indicate John Kerry was the actual winner on
November 2, as reported in national exit polls. At the very least, the
widespread tampering with how the election was conducted, and how Ohio’s votes
were counted and re-counted, has compromised this nation’s historic commitment
to free and fair elections. George W. Bush’s ‘victory’ appears to have resulted
from multiple frauds – a GOP ‘do-whatever it takes’ strategy to win the state
that swung the election.” (“Beyond Any Reasonable Doubt, Bush Did Not
Win Ohio Or National Vote, Say Activist Groups,” Press Release, 1/4/05)
NAACP National
Voter Fund: “The Election Of 2004 May Be Over But The Issue Of The
Disenfranchisement Of The Ohio Voters Will Not Go Away.” (NAACP National Voter
Fund, “Commemorating Past Victories… Embracing New Challenges,” Press Release,
2/1/05)
NAACP National
Voter Fund Said Over 120,000 “Primarily African American And Low-Income Votes
[In Ohio] Were Never Counted Or Recounted.” “Despite all the legislative initiatives over the past 40
years, we all witnessed with our own eyes what happened here in Ohio where over
120,000 primarily African American and low-income votes were never counted or
recounted. Federal and state voting rights laws continue to be circumvented or
ignored in Ohio and in many other states like Pennsylvania, Nevada still in too
many communities throughout the south. The long lines in poor and minority
communities demonstrates what happens when adequate financial resources are not
provide by either the state or federal government to ensure that there are
enough voting machines and enough trained and stilled workers on election day
ensuing that every citizens rights are protected. Instead in Ohio we have state
election officials seeking waivers from federal mandates, supporting challenges
to 35,000 citizens who were registered by community based organizations and
filing endless lawsuits against these very civil rights and voting rights
groups who are seeking to protect and defend the voting rights of all our
citizens.” (NAACP National Voter Fund, “Commemorating Past
Victories… Embracing New Challenges,” Press Release, 2/1/05)
NAACP National
Voter Fund Is Organized As 501(c) 4 Group. (National Voter
Fund Website, http://www.naacpnvf.org/c_about.intro.nvf_facts.php,
Accessed 3/13/05)
ü 501(c) 4, 5 & 6 Organizations Are Not
Required To Publicly Disclose Their Contributors. These organizations are required to disclose
their donors to the IRS but not to the public. They file IRS Form 990 annually,
which requires disclosure of revenues, total political spending and other financial
and organizational information. The three most recent Form 990s must be made
publicly available by these organizations. The deadline for filing Form 990 is
5 months and 15 days after the end of an organization’s fiscal year. (IRS
Charitable Organizations Website, http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/index.html,
Accessed 10/7/03; Call To IRS, 10/5/03)
NAACP National
Voter Fund Is One Of Several “Self-Described Nonpartisan Charity Groups” –
Funded By “Unlimited Anonymous Contributions” – Conducting Major Voter
Registration Efforts For 2004 Election. “Fueled by unlimited anonymous contributions,
self-described nonpartisan charity groups are launching ambitious programs to
register hundreds of thousands of new voters in key battleground states this
year. Most of the groups are traditionally allied with Democrats. Five
large liberal-leaning charities interviewed by The Hill said they plan
to register upwards of 5 million new voters through registration programs that
will cost millions of dollars. The organizations are: USAction, People for the
American Way, the Center for Community Change, the Southwest Voter Registration
Education Project and the League of Conservation Voters. Two charities that
are also expected to conduct major registration operations, the NAACP Voter
Education Fund and ACORN/Project Vote, did not respond to requests for comment.”
(Alexander Bolton, “Charities Fill Parties’ Roles With Help Of
Millions Of Dollars In Soft Money,” The Hill, 3/17/04)
NAACP Spent
$10.5 Million On 2000 Election In “Its First Electoral Activism … In Its
91-Year History,” “A Colossal Jump” From $1 Million It Spent In 1996. “The NAACP, while nominally
nonpartisan, has also thrown itself into this race – its first electoral
activism of this sort in its 91-year history. It is spending $10.5 million
in this election cycle – a colossal jump from the approximately $1 million
it spent in 1996.” (John Mintz, “The Interest Groups,” The
Washington Post, 11/3/00)