According to the reports, FBI is investigating whether the liberal-leaning voter registration group ACORN has attempted to “foster voter registration fraud around the nation before the presidential election.”  

The news of the investigation follows the charges by Senator John McCain and GOP leaders that ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) “may be perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history.” The group is being accused of knowingly submitting false voter registration forms in Nevada, Missouri and half-dozen others states.

ACORN says it has signed up 1.3 million new voters this cycle, many of them poor, young or minorities. The organization says that since most of the new voters support Democrats, it has been targeted by Republicans, who have accused organizers of trying to undermine elections.

Executive Director Michael Slater of Project Vote, which funds ACORN and represents it in legal matters, said the group has yet to be informed of any national investigation. Slater said that any suggestion that ACORN was orchestrating voter fraud was “absolutely false”, adding that the timing of the investigation was “highly suspicious” because it was so close to the election.

Slater told McClatchy Newspapers: “We knew this was coming. We saw in 2004 that we were attacked by Republican interests, and law enforcement was politicized to go after us. We saw civil suits and organizations created whose specific purpose was to demonize ACORN.”

House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, is unhappy that someone leaked word of a preliminary FBI investigation into the controversial group’s voter registration activities. Speaking in defense of ACORN, Conyers called the group “a longstanding and well regarded organization that fights for the poor and working class.” He criticized the Justice Department for leaking this story so close to an election, and added that it was “a right-wing cottage industry to cry wolf over alleged ‘voter fraud’ during an election season.”