PRISON RULES: ACORN INTIMIDATES ITS OWN WORKERS

Shades of Rahway...Shades of Cool Hand Luke

Pushed to meet daily quotas and bullied by bosses if they didn't, Ohio ACORN workers faked voter registrations, signed up people more than once, and even paid off registrants to keep from being fired, its canvassers told The Post.

"Every day, there was pressure on us. Every single day," said Teshika Elder, a Cleveland single mom of three who worked for ACORN this summer.

"We had meetings every morning where they'd go over your quota; they'd yell at you if you were low," said Elder, 21. "They'd sit us down and say if you didn't do better, they'd suspend you. They'd say, 'Try harder next time,' [and] if you didn't get it, you'd be fired."

Desperate canvassers sometimes resorted to trading cigarettes, cash and food in exchange for registrations, according to Elder and two other former ACORN workers, Jaymes Sanford, 18, and Selvin Cunningham, 23.

"It was just little stuff - a dollar, a cigarette - given to people so that they'd register," said Sanford, a former team leader.

"People are scared of not making their quotas," he said. "I didn't do it, but it's the way it worked."