ELECTIONS : Brooks’ Challenge Seen as Unlikely to Succeed : Most observers say the U.S. House won’t meddle in the contested ballot count that gave Jane Harman victory. Vote fraud is claimed.

Even though Republicans have a majority in Congress, political analysts doubt that GOP candidate Susan Brooks will get very far in her challenge of Rep. Jane Harman’s narrow reelection victory last year.

Brooks filed a protest in the U.S. House of Representatives last week, saying that a citizens group has uncovered cases of voter irregularities that warrant a special election. The House Administration Committee--chaired by Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Bakersfield), who campaigned for Brooks--will consider the complaint in February.

But would the GOP really try to alter the results of the 36th Congressional District race?

“You have got to look at the big picture,” said Democratic consultant Joe Cerrell. “You play games like that and it’s counterproductive. There’s a strong reaction to it. You make it a national issue, and it looks like outright thievery.”

Political consultant Allan Hoffenblum said that Republicans want to avoid the turmoil that occurred after the 1984 election, when Republican congressional candidate Richard D. McIntyre of Indiana won a narrow victory. The election was overturned by a task force controlled by Democrats, and Frank McCloskey was seated.

“The Republicans have vowed they would never do something similar to that,” said Hoffenblum, who worked for Brooks’ opponent in the primary, Ron Florance. “They are not in the mood to repeat that.”

But political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe noted that the House of Representatives has taken up challenges in other races this year, although no results have been reversed. With Brooks’ case, “it depends if there is enough evidence to question the validity of the results,” said Jeffe, senior associate for the Center for Politics and Economics at Claremont Graduate School.

Brooks held a 93-vote lead the day after the election, but Harman eventually won after absentee ballots put her 812 votes ahead. The results of the race were certified by the California secretary of state, and Harman was seated when the House convened earlier this month.

“I don’t think the Republicans want to steal the election,” said Harman (D-Rolling Hills).

Her spokesman, Roy Behr, was more biting. Brooks, he said, “is beyond being a sore loser.”

But Brooks said she cannot ignore the results of an investigation by the Committee on Election Integrity, a citizens group that includes former Brooks campaign workers. The group zeroed in on 22 precincts in Venice and one in San Pedro. Nearly 1,000 instances of “illegal and/or suspicious” votes were found in Venice, which Harman won handily, the group said.

“It would have been easy to walk away from this,” Brooks said, “but there is an absolute need to restore the integrity of the election process.”

In some instances, the group said, voters signed poll rosters listing their residences as abandoned houses, vacant lots and a bed-and-breakfast inn. In other cases, a non-citizen and a “dead person” were allowed to vote.

“I am not alleging widespread voter fraud,” Brooks said, “but not ruling it out either.”

The vote-fraud group is calling on the House Administration Committee to investigate their claims. The House committee, which will meet Feb. 8, can take a variety of actions, including passing a resolution to validate the election, ordering the seat vacated or calling a new election, said Bill Pierce, a spokesman for the chairman, Thomas. The full House would then vote on the resolution, he said.

“Under the Contested Elections Act, if a defeated candidate files a contest, you are compelled to look at it,” Thomas said. “You can’t just say, ‘Sorry, we can’t look at it.’ . . . We are not dreaming up whole new rules to count the votes the way we want them to come out.”

But Hoffenblum and Cerrell predicted that without evidence such as affidavits from voters or videotapes of people illegally casting ballots, lawmakers will be reluctant to take the challenge very far.

The bulk of the vote-fraud group’s claims could simply be people who moved from the precinct and forgot to re-register, they said.

“It’s technically illegal,” Hoffenblum said. “Many people do it and are not aware it’s illegal. (Brooks) has to prove that people did it with fraudulent intent.”

The same number of disputed ballots could be found in precincts that Brooks won, Cerrell said.

“Every time you find a potential fraudulent vote for Jane Harman, you can find a potentially fraudulent vote for Susan Brooks,” he said. “You have got no reason to believe it’s one-sided fraud.”

Brooks said that she plans to go to Washington this week to make her case with House members. Harman, meanwhile, has 30 days to file a response.

Times staff writer James Bornemeier contributed to this story.