Fortunately, it wasn't a close election in New Jersey

ACORN seems to be up to their old bad habits.

A New Jersey hospital is denying accusations that ACORN workers have been inside collecting absentee ballots for the state's gubernatorial race.

East Orange General Hospital CEO Kevin Slavin said Tuesday that "all proper protocols" were followed as part of its program to allow patients to vote via absentee ballot, and that no third-party groups were signing up patients.

"Other than the specifically designated and trained staff to hand out and collect these ballots, no advocacy groups were authorized nor allowed access to the hospital to hand out absentee ballots to patients as has been recently reported in unsubstantiated blogs and on political talk shows," he said in a written statement.

Slavin was referring to reports that claimed people wearing ACORN shirts were spotted distributing and collecting absentee ballots at a hospital in the area. The Wall Street Journal reported this Monday, as did BigGovernment.com -- the Web site that publicized recent undercover operations in which ACORN workers were filmed giving tax advice to two activists posing as a pimp and prostitute. . . . .