Dornan Lawyers Outline Possible Voting Irregularities

Lawyers for Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) presented voter registrar’s officials with a letter Wednesday outlining possible irregularities and other questions they have about the voting and registration process in the 46th Congressional District race.

The letter raises a variety of questions with regard to possible fraudulent voting, many of them produced by computer analysis of so-called “voter tapes” from the recent election, said William Hart, an attorney for Dornan.

“We want to get an assessment” of whether these issues merit further inquiry or can be easily explained by the registrar, Hart said.

Deputy Registrar of Voters Don Taylor said the material would be promptly reviewed but would not be examined as part of the recount Dornan requested.

The recount will end today, said Registrar of Voters Rosalyn Lever, after the last of the 106,255 ballots in the race has been recounted. Any other issues will be dealt with outside of that process, she said.

Dornan lost the election by 984 votes to Democrat Loretta Sanchez, and has lost ground slightly during the recount.

Should he lose again in the recount, Dornan must determine by Dec. 26 whether he has found sufficient irregularities to appeal the result in court or to the House of Representatives, Hart said.

Among the issues raised in the letter are allegations that up to 100 persons voted twice in the election, that there is a discrepancy of 1,985 ballots between the printed statement of election results and the voter tapes, that 150 persons registered and voted illegally from business addresses, and that two underage people voted. All the issues were raised after a computer analysis of voter records by a Torrance firm called Fair Elections Group.

Registrar officials said there are numerous valid explanations for the double voting records, and said it is highly unlikely that more than a few on the list voted twice. Taylor said the difference in the election results, which are accurate, and the voter tapes, which show whether individual registered voters cast a ballot, contain about a 1% error rate when information from printed voting rosters is transferred to computer.

The letter also asks the registrar to review perhaps thousands of registrations sent in from August to October by Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, a Latino citizenship organization. Dornan wants to know if the group complied with the law, requiring that signed voter registration cards be given to the registrar within three days.