Charges of Wide Voter Fraud Found to Lack Proof

Despite allegations by an anti-illegal immigration group that large numbers of noncitizens will be voting in Tuesday’s election, investigations by state and local agencies over the years have turned up no evidence of widespread fraud.

California Secretary of State Bill Jones said his office would look into complaints presented by any “reputable source.” But he added that an extensive investigation launched two years ago in response to complaints from a Los Angeles citizens’ group, found only a few, isolated cases of fraud. Many suspected problems had legitimate explanations, such as people with almost identical names turning out to be relatives living at the same address, he said.

“A lot of cases were perceived to be fraud but didn’t turn out to be,” Jones said. “There’s a lot of dead wood on the rolls, but that can be due to a host of things, not all of which are fraud.”

Jones, whose office issued a final report on the investigation last week, said 10% to 15% of the names on California’s voter rolls should be purged, primarily because people have moved or died.

Wally Wade, Orange County assistant district attorney, said he could find only two cases of noncitizens prosecuted for voting in this county. One, a French national who said he voted in 1984 to show how easy it was, pleaded guilty to a felony. The other, a Canadian national, was convicted last year of a misdemeanor for votes cast in 1990 and 1992.

Nevertheless, reports of widespread voter fraud have surfaced repeatedly in the past decade.

In 1994, complaints by Republican Party activists held up the count of absentee ballots in the U.S. Senate race between Dianne Feinstein and Michael Huffington until a judge ordered it to continue.

An examination of voter registration rolls by associates of Huffington, who lost the race, later turned up no conclusive evidence of fraud.

Harold Ezell, an architect of the anti-illegal immigration initiative Proposition 187 and former Western regional chief of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, formed his own group to root out noncitizen voters. But the Voter Fraud Task Force disbanded before finding any proof of a widespread problem, said former member Bill King.

Earlier, in 1988, local Republican activists hired security guards to watch over polling places in heavily Latino districts. Some guards held signs warning noncitizens not to vote. The party was later sued by five Latino voters and settled the case for $400,000.

This week, members of the Huntington Beach-based California Coalition for Immigration Reform, which advocates tough measures against illegal immigration, said they suspect noncitizens will try to vote next week. They said they will post fliers near polling places warning against it.

“I think the ’96 election will be a travesty of justice,” said Coalition founder Barbara Coe. “I’m sitting here looking at a stack of about 20 names of people who have openly admitted they are noncitizens registered to vote. It came from one of our members who works at an agency. Some of them are illegal aliens. They think it’s a humongous joke.”

Republicans in several key Assembly races also said they suspect voter fraud, and are doing computer research of registration rolls to uncover it.

Three of the districts are in Los Angeles County--the inland 43rd and 44th districts and the coastal 53rd--as well as Monterey Bay’s 28th Assembly District. All are hotly contested races that could make or break the Republican effort to retain control of the lower house.

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John Nelson, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove), said voter fraud has been unearthed in several of the districts in elections past. He said Republicans are trying to find only the most obvious examples of potential voter fraud--duplicate names at a single address.

Despite the computer sleuthing, Republicans don’t expect a huge payback on election day. Nelson said a big problem is the lack of investigative manpower at the California secretary of state’s office. “In practical terms, not a whole lot can be done before election day,” Nelson said. “I do not expect duplicate voters will be purged in the next week.”

Art Montez, president of the Santa Ana chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, charged that those who cry fraud actually hope to intimidate scores of newly registered voters--many of them immigrants who became citizens this year--from going to the polls.

He has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to help monitor and protect polling places in Orange County.

A Justice Department spokesman said federal agents cannot officially patrol polling places here. However, he said, “there are other ways we can find out about problems at the polls, such as individuals reporting to us.”

The spokesman said the department is aware of concerns in Orange County, adding “We are engaged in conversations to understand more what the allegations are.”

Special units within each U.S. attorney’s office nationwide will be set up to field complaints about problems at the polls. In Southern California, federal officials plan to announce special telephone numbers where citizens can call to register complaints about voter fraud or intimidation.