July 22, 2009 PITTSBURGH – The
American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and Project Vote filed a lawsuit today on behalf of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
(ACORN), a community organization comprising more than 20,000 working families
in Pennsylvania
that utilizes voter-engagement strategies, like voter-registration campaigns,
as part of its work to strengthen low- and moderate-income communities.
The lawsuit charges that a Pennsylvania
law unconstitutionally restricts ACORN’s right to conduct
voter-registration drives by effectively prohibiting it from using paid
canvassers.
The Pennsylvania statute at issue makes it a crime to
“give, solicit or accept payment or financial incentive to obtain a voter
registration if the payment or incentive is based upon the number of
registrations or applications obtained.” While the law could be
read to prohibit only paying people per registration submitted, the Allegheny
County District Attorney’s office has applied the law to prohibit an
organization from using flexible productivity standards and goals to manage
paid canvassers. In May, District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. charged
several ex-ACORN canvassers with violating the statute under that theory.
“This law, which prevents ACORN from using commonplace
management tools like performance standards and productivity goals to manage
paid employees, does nothing to prevent election problems but does impose a
major burden on constitutionally protected political activity,” said
Witold Walczak, the ACLU-PA’s Legal Director and one of ACORN’s
lawyers.
“The Allegheny
County DA’s
interpretation of this Pennsylvania
statute creates a chilling environment that makes it impossible for anyone to
manage a professional paid voter registration drive in Pennsylvania
without fear of prosecution,” said Brian Mellor, a senior attorney
with Project Vote, which is co-counsel on the case with the ACLU-PA.
“The impact of the restriction will be felt most by low income and
minority voters, who rely more heavily on registration drives than do affluent
and white voters,” continued Mellor.
In 2008, ACORN unfairly came under fire for allegedly
participating in voter-registration fraud. In reality, the Allegheny County
Election Division requested that third-party-voter-registration groups such as
ACORN submit all registration
applications they collected, even those that were incomplete, inaccurate, or
likely fraudulent, in order to prevent groups from collecting registrations and
then not turning them in.
In fact, ACORN identified for elections officials the
problematic applications at the time of submission, and turned over information
on employees suspected of committing fraud. The careful training and quality
control programs applied by ACORN’s Pittsburgh
office, which reflected the organization’s standards nationally, resulted
in the office identifying for the Allegheny County Election Division over 200
defective registrations, terminating several employees suspected of fraud, and
cooperating with the district attorney’s investigation of those
employees.
Since 1970, ACORN has been one of the country’s most
influential advocates on social and economic justice issues for low- to
moderate-income people. Voter registration has been an important part of
ACORN’s ongoing efforts to empower people in poor and minority
communities. For more on ACORN, go to www.acorn.org.
Today’s lawsuit, ACORN
v. Tom Corbett, et al., was filed in U.S. District Court in
Pittsburgh. The lawsuit names as a defendants Attorney General Tom
Corbett, who is legally obligated to defend its constitutionality, and District
Attorney Zappala. The lawsuit asks the court to declare that the law unconstitutionally
interferes with important political activity and to stop its enforcement.
Attorneys on the case are, besides Walczak and Mellor, Sara
Rose, staff attorney with ACLU-PA; Teresa James, staff attorney
with Project Vote; Arthur Schwartz of Advocates for Justice & Reform Now of
New York City; and Claudia Davidson, a private practitioner in
Pittsburgh. The complaint is available at: www.aclupa.org/acorn
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CONTACT: Sara Mullen, ACLU of Pennsylvania,
215-592-1513 x 122
Maryellen
Hayden, ACORN, 412-657-3251
Michael McDunnah, Project Vote, 202-905-1397