KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Kansas City election officials say thousands of questionable voter registration cards have been turned in by the same group whose efforts have been criticized in St. Louis.

Kansas City election director Ray James said the U.S. attorney and Jackson County prosecutor's office have been asked to investigate registrations collected by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN.

James said more than 15,000 registrations have problems such as duplicates, questionable or unreadable information, or names, addresses and Social Security numbers that don't match existing records.

For example, the Kansas City Elections Office has seven different voter applications from the same person dated between Aug. 29 and Aug. 31, KMBC's Micheal Mahoney reported.

ACORN member Todd Elkins, who was at the election office on Tuesday checking the voting rolls, said it's possible the applicant was just friendly.

"And maybe he kept coming up to our voting canvassers and kept signing up," Elkins said.

"Seven times?" Mahoney asked.

"I'm saying it's a possibility," Elkins said.

Jackson County Election Board Director Charlene Davis showed Mahoney that a 19-year-old woman had filed 11 applications to vote.

"But they're all signed by her, same person. Incredible, isn't it?" Davis said.

In another case, the Election Board sent a letter out asking for a man to fill in some missing information on his voter form. Davis said the man's wife called back and said the man had been dead for 27 years.

ACORN officials said honest mistakes may have led to some of the problems with the registration cards.

"We were not trying to do anything undercover," director of ACORN Kansas City Claudia Harris said.

"There is some motivation behind this. This is not accidental," said Ray James with the Kansas City Election Board.

Harris said ACORN workers are paid by the hour, not the signature. She said they have fired some workers.

"There were five that I know of that have been fired and we turned them over to the authorities because they were doing things that were fraudulent," Harris said.

Davis said Jackson County plans to turn about 1,300 questionable ACORN applications over to federal investigators.

Earlier this month in St. Louis, election officials said at least 1,500 potentially fraudulent voter registration cards were turned in by the St. Louis ACORN branch.

ACORN paid people to collect voter registration cards in Missouri and 16 other states this year. Similar allegations have been made in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Denver.