DBKP has the latest Ohio Presidential Election News Roundup for Wednesday, October 15, 2008, where a conservative think tank has filed a RICO suit against ACORN.

It’s been busy in the state of Ohio in regards to the upcoming Presidential election: visits from VP candidates, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, a decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the voter registration verification case against the Ohio Secretary of State, as well as more allegations of voter fraud against ACORN and new charges of racketeering.

Democrat VP pick Senator Joe Biden spoke to a crowd of 1,000 at Warren, Ohio, Tuesday morning. According to the AP, the crowd consisted of “high school students and union members”. Warren was the first stop on a two-day bus tour for Biden across the state of Ohio.

According to the Akron Beacon Journal, Biden spoke about the “American Labor Movement” being the reason “there’s a Middle Class” while Richard Trumka, secretary treasurer of the AFL-CIO, claimed 40,000 plants had closed their doors since Bush took office 8 years ago. Warren Mayor Michael O’Brien claimed the people of “Mahoney Valley have not been treated like constituents, but as ”victims” in the last years under President Bush”.

Biden stopped in St. Clairsville, Ohio, at a second rally today held in a courtyard of the Ohio University Eastern, less than a mile from where Palin spoke to an enthusiastic crowd on Sunday. According the Wheeling Intelligencer, Biden told the crowd that the Obama administration would give a $1000 tax rebate to “every homeowner” to “assist with heating costs” which would be paid for by taxing “windfall profits” on oil companies, a move that was “similar to the one instituted in Alaska by Palin”:

“If it’s good enough for Alaska, it’s good enough for Ohio. If it’s good enough for Alaska, it’s good enough for West Virginia,” Biden said.

According to WTOV TV, there were “hundreds” at the Biden rally in St. Clairsville, Ohio whereas DBKP reported that Governor Sarah Palin (R) of Alaska, McCain’s VP pick, spoke before an estimated crowd of 20,000 plus on Sunday less than a mile from where Biden spoke today.

An investigation into ACORN and voter registration fraud in Cleveland by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections wrapped up Tuesday after two subpoenaed witnesses testified.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, two witnesses claimed representatives of ACORN pressured the two men into filling out multiple voter registration forms after they were offered money–a dollar–or cigarettes, or were told the ACORN worker needed the forms filled out in order to “keep their jobs”. During the board’s investigation witnesses testified that ACORN workers had to “meet quotas”. The board decided during their meeting that all information will be turned over to the sheriff and county prosecutor’s office.

A federal appeals court has weighed in on the voter registration issue in Ohio ruling on Tuesday that Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has until Friday to establish a system of verifying “hundreds of thousands of newly registered voters”.

According to CNN, Brunner, a Democrat, must verify newly registered voters by comparison to other government records as well as make “eligibility information available to all 88 county election boards”.

Brunner claimed that voters will be “disenfranchised” by “government red tape” and “computer glitches”:

“It is imperative that voters not be disenfranchised because of federal government red tape, misstated technical information or glitches in databases beyond the control of voters or the Secretary of State,” said Brunner, a Democrat, after the ruling.

“That is why we will work with the federal court, even though we believe that the order goes beyond the requirements of (the Help American Vote Act).”

The full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned on Tuesday a decision made by three members of the court last week. The court ruled that Brunner will have to cross reference info on voters from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration.

“As far as we can tell, the problem with the current system (of cross-checking) is not that it is insufficiently user-friendly, but that it is effectively useless,” wrote Judge Jeffrey Sutton, writing for the majority.”

A conservative think tank, the Buckeye Institute in Columbus, Ohio, has filed a federal lawsuit against ACORN citing the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act or “RICO Act”. According to the Columbus Dispatch, the think tank seeks the “dissolution of ACORN” and that ACORN “engages in a pattern of corrupt activity that amounts to organized crime”.

By LBG

Image – Voter Girl