The System Isn’t Foolproof

Over the years I’ve heard illegal immigrants blamed for everything from unemployment to (no kidding) drought. So it is no surprise to now hear dire claims that our newest immigration- related “problem” may be voter fraud.

The latest attempt to demonize immigrants began as the 1996 election campaign wound down and House Speaker Newt Gingrich realized that the GOP was on the verge of losing not just the presidential election but possibly control of Congress. In a last-ditch effort to rally Republican voters, he and other Republican leaders seized on allegations that some of the immigrants who were then being sworn in as citizens in record numbers might have criminal records. In GOP campaign rhetoric the phrase “illegal voters” soon became almost interchangeable with “illegal aliens.”

Now, to hear Latino activists in Orange County tell it, for some people there those two phrases have become interchangeable. Because nearly three months after the actual voting, the last bitter battle of the ’96 election is still being fought in Orange County, and new citizens are caught in the middle.

The fight is focused on the 46th Congressional District, covering Anaheim, Garden Grove and Santa Ana, where the GOP suffered one of its most highly publicized setbacks: the defeat of longtime Rep. Robert K. Dornan by political newcomer Loretta Sanchez.

Media interest in Sanchez’s narrow victory over Dornan has helped keep alive the issue of alleged voter fraud. A young Latina coming out of nowhere to defeat one of the biggest names in Congress is just too good a story to give up, which is why the Capitol Hill press corps covered Sanchez like a conquering heroine when she arrived in Washington.

But Dornan also knows how to keep the media’s attention. And from election night, when he was ahead by a mere 233 votes, to the final tally that gave Sanchez her 984-vote victory, to the present, Dornan has been playing up the voter fraud allegations. He’s made himself the poster boy for the GOP cause.

But even allowing for Dornan’s obvious motives, the press was obligated to investigate the possibility that fraud may have been a factor in such a close, and closely watched, election. Eventually a team of Times’ reporters came up with something, although precisely what is still to be determined by the proper authorities.

Times staffers interviewed many newly naturalized citizens in Orange County at random and found 18 who may have voted in violation of one or another election rule. Some said they voted before taking the oath of citizenship. Others had registered before doing so, but did take the oath before voting. In both types of cases, there were technical violations of state law.

When The Times’ stories were published in January, they immediately--and properly--set off investigations by the Orange County district attorney and the secretary of state’s office, which oversees California elections. Both probes are continuing.

But so far, they have not found enough illegal or incorrect votes to make a difference in the Dornan-Sanchez contest. Just as important, these official investigations have yet to find prosecutable evidence that any of these improper votes were cast as part of a conspiracy. In other words, there is no apparent voting fraud.

Instead, what has so far been found are the normal snafus and human errors that occur in all elections and that are made by voters of all ethnic backgrounds.

This is not big news to voting experts like Tony Miller, California’s former secretary of state, who points out that human error is a much more common problem in U.S. elections than fraud.

“The system isn’t foolproof,” he said. “There is always error, but it is so small that no one has ever tracked it or kept figures on it.”

Flawless elections, Miller says, “would require Draconian measures that I am not sure we as a society would tolerate. So we must be careful not to extrapolate from the few problems to assume the whole system is tainted.”

In fact, a noteworthy sidelight to this case that hasn’t been stressed enough is that Dornan himself was once guilty of a technical violation of election law. That happened when he first moved from Los Angeles to Orange County in 1984 to run for Congress. He registered to vote at a business address rather than a residence, as the law requires, but Orange County authorities did not prosecute him. They should now be willing to give the benefit of the doubt to any new citizens who may have been guilty of technical voting violations of roughly the same magnitude.

After all, new citizens who may have voted erroneously in 1996 will be doubly sure to get things right next time. And they’ll be that much angrier with any politician who tries to equate “illegal voters” with “illegal aliens.”