D.A. Looks Into Legality of Gift Offer to Voters

The district attorney’s office is reviewing whether a local group broke the law by offering free $10 tickets in a lottery to residents who could show proof they had registered to vote or had voted in elections in 1996.

Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, a Latino empowerment organization, offered the raffle tickets for a drawing for a 1996 Camaro on Nov. 16, but dropped the voter inducements in April when they realized there might be a legal problem, according to Mike Farber, a spokesman for the group.

Farber said some tickets were given to people who had registered or showed proof they had voted in the March primary. Those could not be given back “because there was no record of why people had gotten tickets,” he said.

The office is looking at whether a state or federal law might have been violated and whether the facts warrant a formal investigation.

Under the federal code, it is a crime to “pay or offer to pay or accept payment either for registration to vote or for voting.” Legal authorities said that the offering of a ticket to a lottery, which otherwise would cost $10, would constitute a payment.

However, state law makes it a crime to offer payments in exchange for voting for a particular person, or for not voting, but not merely for registering or voting, legal authorities said.

The district attorney’s office has been exploring whether election fraud occurred in the 46th Congressional District election last month, when Democrat Loretta Sanchez defeated Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) by 984 votes. The inquiry includes a review of the lottery and other material, said Assistant Dist. Atty. Wallace J. Wade.

Dornan, whose complaints triggered the inquiry, has alleged that noncitizens were induced to vote in a variety of ways, including the raffle for the Camaro.

“We haven’t completed the research” yet to determine if the lottery would violate state law, Wade said. “I haven’t looked at the federal statute.”

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Bill Jones on Wednesday said his office had completed an inquiry and was launching a formal investigation into Dornan’s complaints of voter fraud.

Jones said investigators were looking into Dornan’s allegations of voting by noncitizens, lax ballot box security, people voting repeatedly and registering at nonexistent addresses.

Wade said his office is reviewing material with the secretary of state’s office to make sure they have all the same material.

That material includes affidavits from voters who say they saw improper procedures at the polls, affidavits from someone who found dozens of people registered at nonexistent addresses, and someone else who found 26 people registered as living at a vacated county general relief office.

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Nancy Cleeland.