A judge on Wednesday fined the defunct grass-roots community organizing group ACORN $5,000 for its illegal voter-registration program in Nevada — but said he wishes he could have put someone in prison, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
At the sentencing, Clark County District Judge Donald Mosley said if a person had been before him instead of a corporation, he would have slapped the individual with a 10-year prison term.
“And I wouldn’t have thought twice about it,” Mosley said.Instead, Mosley fined the group the maximum of $5,000. He said the corporation made a “mockery” of the country’s electoral process.
ACORN pled guilty in April to one count of felony compensation for registration of voters for its role in a program during the 2008 election cycle that provided cash to workers based on the number of voters they registered.
The incentive program — dubbed Blackjack or 21-Plus — gave workers an extra $5 each shift they gathered 21 or more filled out voter registration cards. Prosecutors said ACORN authorized a Las Vegas field worker to run the illegal compensation program.
