Not Their Kind of Party : Many Say They Wrongly Ended Up Registered as Reform or Natural Law Voters

For a half-century, Ruby Johnson’s voting record was unblemished: a straight Democratic ballot all the way. But not this year.

Johnson was among hundreds of Los Angeles County voters stunned Tuesday to discover that they have been mysteriously re-registered into new political parties that qualified in California last fall, according to county officials.

Instead of being able to vote for Democrats or Republicans in this week’s primary election, Johnson, 70, of south Los Angeles, and others found themselves registered to vote only for candidates from the Reform Party or the Natural Law Party.

County election administrators said Thursday they are being bombarded with complaints from angry voters who claim they never changed their registration. Officials said they plan to investigate whether fraud was involved.

But the most likely explanation is that some voters unwittingly changed their party affiliations last September and October when more than 60,000 of them in the Los Angeles area signed registration cards that the Reform and Natural Law parties used to help win state certification, according to county officials.

Instead of petitioning the state for ballot status, both parties collected signed voter registration forms. That meant they could qualify by collecting 89,000 registrations, rather than by gathering the signatures of 890,000 voters on petitions, officials from the two parties said.

“This was an unfortunate byproduct of these quick new-party qualification drives,” said Conny McCormack, registrar-recorder for Los Angeles County. “It was incredibly confusing for voters.”

McCormack said her office has received “hundreds, if not thousands” of complaints from voters. Many indicated that they thought they were signing routine ballot initiative petitions.

Among the complainers was unsuccessful Democratic congressional candidate Omar Bradley, the mayor of Compton, who told elections officials Thursday that many of his supporters were unable to vote for him. Bradley said he is collecting a list of his disenfranchised backers, McCormack said.

“Some people probably were duped, misled,” she added. If that was willfully done, “it is a criminal offense”--although that may be difficult to prove in court.

McCormack stressed that the episode demonstrates that voters should be aware of what they are signing before they put their names on petitions or other documents being circulated outside supermarkets or door to door.

Leaders of both new parties denied any wrongdoing Thursday.

“We even gave some people extra voter registration forms so they could re-register,” said John Black, a Palo Alto teacher who heads the Natural Law Party in California. His group--which traces its roots to the transcendental meditation movement spawned by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi--bills itself as the “education party.”

A spokesman for the Reform Party--Ross Perot’s organization--said its signature gatherers also carefully explained things to voters.

“We were very clear to volunteers working for us to inform voters that they were changing their registration,” said Reform Party state chairman Michael Farris. “We didn’t want to engage in any trickery. We don’t condone any manipulation.”

Farris, an oceanic researcher who lives in Thousand Oaks, said he thinks that local election officials sometimes make mistakes in designating voters’ party affiliation.

Election officials said this type of mix-up will be a thing of the past if Prop. 198, the open-primary system of balloting approved by voters Tuesday, takes effect in 1998.

Voters such as Ruby Johnson, meantime, weren’t taking any chances.

“I’m changing my registration back to Democrat,” she said. “My grandmother told me that is the best party, and I’ve always followed her advice.”