September-November 2004: ACORN Successfully Drives Minimum Wage Referendum in Florida Election, Weathers Voter Fraud Allegations

ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) launches a campaign to register thousands of new voters in Florida, using a referendum that would raise the state’s minimum wage as a method to drum up support. One study shows that the referendum, if enacted, would raise salaries among the working poor by $443 million. A coalition driven by ACORN registers some 210,000 new voters, mostly in urban areas, before Election Day. Opponents of the referendum—mostly business leaders and Florida Republicans—fight back by mounting an ad campaign comparing the effect of the raised minimum wage to the devastation wrought by Florida’s recent hurricanes, and labeling it a “job killer.” They also level accusations of voter fraud, accusing the coalition of filing thousands of fraudulent registrations. National and state Democrats are hesitant to embrace the referendum, even though some polls show that as many as 81 percent of Floridians support it. Presidential candidate John Kerry (D-MA) rarely mentions the referendum during his campaign swings through the state. Although Kerry loses Florida and Republicans win a majority of the Congressional elections, the referendum wins in a landslide, garnering 77 percent of the votes cast and winning in every county, including the conservative counties in the Panhandle. In 2010, author John Atlas will write, “Kerry made the fatal mistake of not publicly embracing the minimum wage ballot.” [Atlas, 2010, pp. 112-114]