Sanchez Keeps Lead as Dornan Keeps Heat On

As Democrat Loretta Sanchez played the role of political ingenue in Washington and Rep. Robert K. Dornan continued to press for an investigation of voter fraud here, the latest ballot count in the 46th Congressional District race Friday showed Sanchez maintaining a comfortable lead.

“We’re ecstatic with these results,” said Marty Stone, a Democratic political consultant from Santa Barbara, who was among about a dozen partisan observers at the Orange County registrar of voters office. “It’s clear now that Loretta was completely justified in announcing victory Wednesday.”

About 1,200 mail-in ballots, sent from precincts too small to have a polling place, were added Friday to the bulk of counted votes in the tight and closely watched race.

Sanchez now has 47,205 votes to Dornan’s 46,540, a lead of 665 votes. Her lead dropped by 100 votes with this latest count.

The news bolstered Sanchez’s conviction that she would indeed be seated in January as a member of Congress. In Washington for several days of orientation with new members, she had just completed an interview with NBC at the Democratic National Party headquarters when she heard the latest vote count. “As I keep telling you folks,” Sanchez said, “the statistics are on my side.” Friday’s announcement leaves only one more piece to the puzzle: an unknown number of provisional ballots that are now being verified and are to be counted by Nov. 26.

Countywide, there are about 13,000 provisional ballots--which are filled out at polling places by voters who have problems with their registration. Estimates on the number of those ballots from the 46th District range from 1,500 to 3,000.

Although unlikely, it is still possible for Dornan to make up the deficit, and he held out hope for that Friday. “I still think [it] could happen,” he said.

But in recent days, Dornan has turned his attention toward a range of allegations of fraud and irregularities, from voting by noncitizens to possible tampering with ballot boxes.

“I now am convinced there will be a new election, that a court will throw out the results,” he told interviewer Judy Woodruff on CNN’s “Inside Politics.”

However, Dornan has yet to offer any evidence of fraud, and even some high-level Republicans appeared to be tiring of his charges. House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Friday that the Oversight Committee would need proof to investigate his claims.

“I just said to him that he has to be able to prove his allegations,” Gingrich (R-Ga.) said of a conversation he had with Dornan earlier this week. “We’re certainly open to him bringing any proof of any illegal votes, vote theft or vote fraud, but he has to have evidence.”

Electoral specialists representing the national and state GOP, sent here to observe the ballot-counting process, said that although there is potential for such fraud, they have seen no evidence of it so far.

“Very few candidates can afford to engage in this kind of investigation after they’ve just lost an election,” said Bob Hunter, an electoral attorney from North Carolina who helped investigate similar allegations raised by Michael Huffington after he lost to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) two years ago. No evidence of fraud was found at that time.

“Voter fraud and irregularities can change an outcome or cast doubt on the validity of the outcome,” he said, “but it’s very difficult to prove and very expensive.”

For instance, to check citizenship, a challenger would have to search for either a birth certificate or a record of naturalization, Hunter said. That tedious process could cost about $10 per voter, he said.

Hunter was sent to the registrar of voters office by state Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove), primarily to observe the count in the Assembly race between Republican incumbent Jim Morrissey and Democrat Lou Correa.

Morrissey’s slim lead was strengthened slightly by Friday’s count. With 24,277 votes, he is now ahead by 376 votes. Morrissey was startled earlier this week when the count of absentee ballots shrunk his lead from about 1,400 to 308 votes.

Observers from both the state and national levels of the Republican and Democratic parties have been at the registrar of voters office since Wednesday to observe the count, and to keep an eye on each other.

Although at times they do watch county employees working to verify and count ballots, the observers have spent many hours sitting at two tables in the office reception area--Democrats on one side of the room, Republicans on the other.

By Friday morning, several were clearly weary of the laboriously slow process and spoke of leaving town for a while, to return in a week or so for the provisional ballot count.

If Dornan’s charges are pursued, the real work will come after the registrar’s final count is released and certified at the end of the month. Then investigators will have access to the names of voters and could check for such things as citizenship and residency.

Dornan has said he will not fund such an investigation himself, but that he hopes the Republican Party will.

Dornan also asked California Secretary of State Bill Jones to look into a list of broad allegations, including contentions that “noncitizens were registered to vote in an organized campaign” and “persons were double voting.”

Jones responded Friday with a five-page letter that essentially asked Dornan to provide proof for each of his allegations. Jones also said that, for the first time, his office plans to compare voting lists across county lines to ensure that no one cast ballots in more than one place.

Jones then advised Dornan, “I do not have the statutory authority to delay certification of the results of the election.”

Chris Sautter, a specialist in post-election disputes sent here as an observer for the Democratic Central Campaign Committee in Washington, said allegations of noncitizen voting have surfaced with increasing frequency in recent years. “But there’s never been any proof,” he said. “Really, what’s happening here is Dornan’s grasping at straws. The only thing that’s left for him is to attack the integrity of the process.”

Also contributing to this report were Times staff writers Gebe Martinez and Peter M. Warren.