A Time to Be Silent

Given his history of fire-breathing rhetoric and bombast, it was unreasonable to expect Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) to go quietly from Congress. Nor was it surprising that on Monday he demanded a recount of the ballots. After all, he lost his reelection bid by fewer than 1,000 votes to Loretta Sanchez. But if the recount fails to change the bottom line and if investigations fail to support Dornan’s claim that ineligible voters cast ballots, he should get out of the way and let Sanchez get on with the job of representing the constituents of her Orange County district.

From the time it first appeared Sanchez might beat him in a major upset, Dornan reached for an excuse: illegal voters. Now it is time for him to provide convincing evidence.

Voter rolls throughout California are filled with names of people actually not eligible to vote in a particular place, usually because they have moved. But in nearly all cases, past investigations of other races have turned up nothing more than harmless mistakes. People did not try to vote twice; they simply voted at polling places near their new residences. The rolls should be cleansed, but uncleansed they do not constitute evidence of fraud.

Dornan has passed on to the Orange County district attorney’s office and the secretary of state’s office his complaints of noncitizens voting and ballot boxes sealed improperly. That is his right. But if those offices fail to find wrongdoing, the six-term House member should accept his defeat and quit making noise.

Dornan too often has shouted without thinking. Recently he called a fellow Republican “a pathetic, old, senile man ... a slimy coward.” The target of Dornan’s remarks was in reality a decorated veteran of two wars who remains mentally agile. His offense in Dornan’s eyes was that he supported Sanchez and another Dornan bete noire, President Clinton.

If Dornan continues to carry on about alleged voter fraud, it could cast a shadow over the seat the voters denied him. The district deserves better than that.