Stock the vote

Politics: Registration shenanigans in several states prompt investigation of ACORN

Marvin Fong/The Plain Dealer/AP

For Freddie Johnson, registering to vote produced more than a patriotic feeling: He says it also produced cash and cigarettes from the part-time workers in Ohio who recorded Johnson's name 72 times.

Johnson, 19, says he filled out 72 separate voter registration cards for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a left-leaning group that pays part-time workers to sign up new voters in low-income communities. The organization says this year more than 13,000 workers in 21 states signed up some 1.3 million voters. Many registered as Democrats.

Johnson says he told multiple ACORN workers that he had already registered, but that one said: "Can you just sign up again?" The cell phone salesman says some workers offered him cigarettes or a dollar to register.