While the news media continues to focus on our voter registration work, which ended back on Oct. 6, ACORN has been busy gearing up for our extensive Get Out the Vote efforts. We want to make sure that ACORN members, new registrants, immigrant citizens, young people, and infrequent voters in low-income and minority communities go to the polls to make their voices heard. This election is one of historic proportions, and we want make sure our registrants can get to the polls, cast a ballot, and have that ballot counted.

In the midst of attempts at voter suppression and intimidation across the country, ACORN is focusing its 2008 Voter Education and Mobilization Program on three sets of voters: 1) those who participated in only one of three recent major elections; 2) inactive voters registered since 2004; and 3) citizens registered since November 2006. ACORN members and organizers will be focusing their efforts in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Ohio, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania so that we can engage more than 250,000voters and contact them personally at least twice--once by phone and once by door-knocking--between now and Election Day on Tuesday.

We also plan to reach these potential voters by robo call and mail programs, getting the word to hundreds of thousands registered voters in 11 states to encourage voting and provide polling place information to new voters. ACORN members and canvassers are working to distribute more than half a million fliers and door-hangers with the 1-866-OUR-VOTE and www.govote.org (www.veavotar.com for Spanish speakers) election protection phone number and website to help ACORN's constituents understand their voting rights, bring proper identification, and find their polling place.

In this huge Get Out the Vote effort, we're partnering with We Are America Alliance (WAAA) to focus on Latino, Asian, and New American communities in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, and Washington. In Colorado and Arizona, our programs will mobilize voters to increase turn-out and help defeat harmful ballot initiatives: a predatory lending deregulation bill in Arizona, four anti-labor ballot Initiatives in Colorado, and an affirmative action ban in Colorado. Voter Education efforts about predatory lending, jobs, the economy, and other economic justice issues will help diverse voters in states across the U.S. make informed decisions regarding ballot initiatives and public policy so they can later hold politicians accountable to ACORN constituents and other low-income voters.

You can help us make sure that our program reaches the maximum number of eligible low-income, minority, and young voters by going here and giving a donation of whatever you can afford! And you can still stand with ACORN against the attacks from the Right by going here to sign the petition telling John McCain to stop the smears and by watching and passing on ACORN's first-ever TV commercial, which aims to fight voter suppression from the McCain campaign.

As everyone knows, John McCain and the GOP have been attacking ACORN for weeks. We've been pretty successful in recent weeks debunking their unfounded claims, but the traditional media's been so complicit in facilitating the attacks that they've largely missed the greater threat to a free and fair election this year: voter suppression and intimidation.

Already, reports from around the U.S. confirm the fact that voters are facing active campaigns to prevent their participation at the polls, coordinated by partisan operatives and now, insidiously involving law enforcement agencies at all levels, from the local all the way to the Department of Justice.

According to Project Vote, these instances of intimidation include everything from a county sheriff in Ohio announcing that he and his office were "seeking information" about hundreds of registered voters who voted during Ohio's five-day window of same-day registration and voting (despite recent court proceedings upholding the lawfulness of the practice) to a call issued by the GOP in Wisconsin to policemen, security personnel, and firefighters to serve as "volunteer poll watchers" in inner city precincts.

But ACORN and its allies are fighting back.

In New Mexico, two lawsuits have been brought against Justine Fox-Young; Al Romero, a private investigator; and John/Jane Does of the Republican Party of New Mexico for their attempts to intimidate voters. In fact, Project Vote, an ACORN affiliate, has recently joined with the ACLU in filing one of these suits against representatives of New Mexico's Republican Party. And the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) is representing two Hispanic women against Pat Rogers, a lawyer of the Republican party in New Mexico who is accused of intimidating the women by sending a private investigator to question their eligibility to vote.

At a recent ACORN press conference, nineteen-year-old Francisco Martinez, a legal voter registered last spring by ACORN who is part of the ACLU suit in New Mexico, spoke out about the suspected illegal use by GOP members of his registration information in an attempt to intimidate him. Martinez spoke directly to those who misused his information, saying, "I won't be intimidated. In fact, I voted early, and my vote will count."

Steve Kest, Executive Director of ACORN, urged Senator McCain to make the first move in reining in the GOP. "Senator McCain needs to instruct his operatives and supporters to cease and desist," Kest said. "Nothing is more important to the fabric of our democracy than protecting the rights of American voters."

And what's happening in New Mexico is just an example of problems faced by voters across the country. Project Vote's diary on the front page of Open Left lists several other ominous instances of law enforcement's involvement in efforts to keep legitimate voters away from the polls. According to Project Vote:

Also in Ohio, county prosecutor Joe Deters initiated a grand jury investigation and issued subpoenas for unredacted personal information on 40% of the 671 new voters who cast ballots during Ohio's five-day window of same-day registration and voting. Deters--citing unspecified allegations of "voter fraud"--launched the investigation and took it upon himself to conduct some attempts to match these voters to government databases and investigate those he determined had problems.

And, in Wisconsin,

Last month, the Republican Attorney General of Wisconsin, J.B. Van Hollen--who is also co-chair of that state's McCain-Palin campaign--filed a lawsuit against the state's Government Accountability Board to force them to cross-check more than 240,000 voter registrations against driver's license records. The impact of the lawsuit would have been to force the voters to use provisional ballots, calling their votes into question and tying up the polls on Election Day.

A judge ruled against Van Hollen's lawsuit, but he and the Wisconsin Republican Party intend to appeal.

ACORN is fighting against these tactics. Not only has ACORN launched its first-ever TV ad, which targets voter suppression, but it is involved in a large-scale GOTV effort to ensure that the low-income voters, voters of color and young voters it helped register can get to the polls, vote, and have their vote counted.

You can help ACORN fight back by going here to sign the petition calling on John McCain to stop the baseless attacks on ACORN and new voters and then by making sure you spread the word, including with the ad and this video rebutting all of the Republicans' absurd and ridiculous claims about ACORN's work. Pass it on.

This is our first diary on TPM Cafe', and we would like to take a minute to thank everyone who has helped tell the truth about ACORN in this crazy election season. We have found ourselves thrown into the national spotlight, and, truth be told, this kind of publicity comes with a price. There have been great stories in the national news praising ACORN's dedication and success organizing low-to-moderate income families for social justice in 40 states across the country, but ACORN has also come under partisan attacks about its voter registration campaign, which often misstate or omit important facts. It's past time to set the record straight.

Bertha Lewis, our new Chief Organizer, took a few minutes to thank everyone that has stood by us these past few weeks as Senator McCain viciously attacked ACORN and tried to discredit the work we are so proud of--helping nearly 1.3 million people register to vote, including 450,000 first-time voters. This was really no surprise to us--the GOP's predictable tactics were bound to emerge in an election where so many people will be voting for the first time, and the Republicans have so much to lose. Check out her video here

People who follow blogs like this know what is at stake with this election. You know that voter fraud does not exist, and that the only threat to the integrity of this election is the GOP's voter suppression strategies.Even Stephen Colbert has rallied behind us, putting a hilarious twist on a not-so-hilarious issue.

So, thanks for standing by us in this difficult time. We invite you to learn more of the truth about ACORN and what we are really about here, and take a few seconds to watch the video about ACORN, voter registration, and voter suppression made by Brave New Films. Tell a friend. 10,000 people have already signed our petition to let Senator McCain know that enough is enough.