Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was a left-of-center voter outreach and low-income advocacy umbrella group that disbanded in 2010 after accusations of voter fraud and the release of a series of videotapes appearing to show ACORN employees condoning illegal behavior.

ACORN was founded in 1970 as a poverty relief group in Arkansas. The organization soon became political and began to spread across the country with a focus on national issues. ACORN organized protests and supported ballot initiatives to enact left-progressive economic and social policies. At its peak, ACORN had more than 100,000 members and 1,000 member organizations.

From the mid-1990s through the 2000s, ACORN was plagued by a series of voter fraud accusations and internal scandals. After the 2008 election, its two greatest scandals resulted in widespread public backlash and the rapid drying up of funds until it declared bankruptcy in 2010.

In 2004, ACORN started ACORN International to export its efforts abroad. A number of left-progressive community organizing and labor union-aligned organizations—including Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, ACTION United,⁶

Heyday Years

By 1980, ACORN had offices in 20 states and 30,000 members. ⁶ That year, it established the ACORN Housing Corporation to assist low-income individuals in purchasing their first home. ACORN claimed to have assisted 45,000 families in acquiring houses. ¹⁰⁶

Also in the early 1990s, ACORN began to launch get-out-the-vote campaigns. In 1992, future U.S. President Barack Obama was a “community organizer” for Project Vote, an organization founded by ACORN in Chicago. Obama would later work on a team of ACORN attorneys who sued the Illinois state government for allegedly violating federal polling laws. ⁶

Scandals

Minimum Wage Exemption

In 1995, despite advocating for a higher minimum wage in dozens of cities, ACORN sued the state of California in an attempt to exempt itself from minimum wage laws, which it claimed were resulting in layoffs and thereby hindering its right to free speech. ACORN’s lawyers also argued that by paying lower wages, its employees would be more sympathetic with the low-income Americans the organization was attempting to help. The lawsuit was unsuccessful, with the presiding judge stating that ACORN was “laboring under a fundamental misconception of constitutional law.” ¹⁵

In September, Giles and O’Keefe released edited forms of the videos to Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com. ACORN initially responded by firing two employees featured in the tapes. 0){ let parent=divs[divs.length-1].parentNode; let footer=divs[divs.length-1]; delete divs[divs.length-1]; for (let i=2; i