CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio - October 14,
2008 - Teenager Freddie Johnson said he was offered smokes and dollar bills to
fill out voter registration cards.
And now the Cuyahoga County Elections Board has 73 cards with Johnson's name on them.
Johnson and another prolific registrant were subpoenaed to testify at a meeting Monday as the Elections Board continued its look at possible fraud by ACORN, a national organization that tries to get low- and moderate-income people to register. ACORN's methods have drawn interest in a number of states this presidential election year.
Johnson, 19, said he mostly was trying to help ACORN workers, who begged him to sign up because they needed to keep their jobs.
"They'd come up with a sob story why they needed the signature," said Johnson, of Garfield Heights.
ACORN leaders have acknowledged that workers paid by the hour were given quotas to fill.
Board member Sandy McNair said ACORN did not do a competent job carrying out its business plan. Members, in fact, said little about ACORN. And they turned their investigation over to the county sheriff and prosecutor.
A second person to testify, Christopher Barkley, 33, said ACORN workers pestered him while they tried to gather signatures.
Barkley, of Cleveland, said he was homeless and reading a book on Public Square when he signed some of the 13 cards that contain his name. He filled out cards - with his mother's house or workplace as the address - to help workers stay employed.
"Me being a kind-hearted person, I said 'Yeah,' " Barkley recalled.