County Investigating Voter Fraud Charges

The county registrar-recorder’s office and the district attorney have launched an investigation into allegations of voter registration fraud in the northeast Valley after a preliminary review Wednesday discovered more than a dozen invalid registrations by noncitizens.

Registrar-recorder Conny McCormack said her staff Wednesday confirmed at least 18 instances of noncitizens registering to vote in the 39th Assembly District, where five candidates are waging a bitter fight for the Democratic nomination in next Tuesday’s primary election.

In 13 other cases, packets sent out to newly registered voters were returned as undeliverable by the post office.

“This is a pretty serious number,” McCormack said. “It’s unusual.”

In several of the instances, the individuals registered after specifically being told by recruiters that their citizenship status did not disqualify them, McCormack said. Her office has enlisted the help of the district attorney to determine whether the false applications are part of a wider pattern of voter registration fraud in the district, which covers the city of San Fernando and the communities of Pacoima, Sylmar and Panorama City.

Such problems often surface during organized registration drives in which recruiters, or “bounty hunters,” are paid for each registration, McCormack said. But the impact of such illegal registrations in terms of actual votes cast has been minimal in similar investigations in the past.

The allegations in the 39th district came to light after a worker for one of the race’s candidates, Jim Dantona, noticed unusually high numbers of new voters registering in the two months before registration closed on Feb. 26. Between Jan. 26 and Feb. 26 alone, 2,600 new voters signed up.

“Somebody went in with a registration drive. We don’t know who,” said Larry Levine, Dantona’s political consultant.

Aides to the campaigns of all three major candidates--Dantona, Tony Cardenas and Valerie Salkin--all said Wednesday that their offices have not hired any voter-recruitment agencies.

However, outside groups often sponsor such drives to support their causes or to promote voter education.

Levine said volunteers and staff members of Dantona’s campaign telephoned some of the new registrants. Several acknowledged they were not citizens, and other names on the list did not match the phone numbers or addresses given.

McCormack’s office began its review Wednesday after the Dantona campaign turned over its findings.

McCormack said she spoke to two registrants who admitted that they were not citizens. Her staff found at least 16 others, one of whom was the sole person on the list turned in by Dantona to have applied for an absentee ballot.

But “whether or not he personally applied for it is another question,” she said.

McCormack said her office would continue to spot-check other new registrants in the district, and that the district attorney’s office had pledged full cooperation in the investigation.