A subsidiary of ACORN, Citizens Services Inc (CSI), is part of what John Fund of the Wall Street Journal calls “Obama’s Liberal Shock Troops”.

For example, a search for ACORN at the 1024 Elysian Fields Avenue address in New Orleans uncovers at least 70 different organizations operating out of that front. One of these, Citizens Services Inc, has received almost $1 million dollars from Barack Obama’s campaign in the last five months.

Citizens Services Inc seems to run under the radar and they do not advertise their services. In response to one of their board members, someone named Sunday Alibi, we were told that this work is done by ACORN, not Citizens Services. Citizens Services has worked on the Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) efforts for campaigns in at least two states, Maryland and Ohio.

First, they were involved in the Maryland Congressional race of 2006, which brought about an FCC complaint this year involving Representatives Al Wynn and challenger Donna Edwards, Wynn vs. Edwards. At the center of the complaint is Citizens’ Services Inc and several other ACORN entities. According to the Louisiana Secretary of State all three of these businesses work out of 1024 Elysian Fields Avenue, New Orleans, ACORN’s business address.

According Lori Sherwood, Wynn’s campaign manager, Edwards made three payments of $76,866.80 to Citizens Services Inc, for a door-to-door get-out-the-vote effort. It seems CSI listed as their business address, 11 Chase Street, Baltimore. When Ms. Sherwood checked the address she found no CSI/ACORN. Upon further examination by Ms. Sherwood, CSI was listed as a foreign company, which was false. Finally Ms. Wynn discovered that the company had forfeited their license to do business in Maryland two months after the 2006 primary race.

Secondly, I looked for CSI/ACORN “campaign consulting” fees in Ohio. I called the Secretary of State of Ohio to find out if they were listed as an active business and they were not. I did find the following businesses operating in Ohio, ACORN LLC, ZACORN (active fictitious name) and acorn.net. As there was no permit for CSI to do business in Ohio, clearly any GOTV activities were operating illegally in that state as well.After placing my call to the Secretary of State in Ohio, I found the following advertisement seeking workers for the Obama campaign, dated February 21, 2008. These are positions paid for by the Obama for America campaign. The full body of the help wanted ad …