20,000 New Voters Is Hermandad’s Goal

Saying he would not be cowed “by false allegations” that his group assisted noncitizens in registering to vote, the executive director of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional’s Santa Ana headquarters on Thursday launched a voter registration drive with a target of recruiting 20,000 new voters over the next two years.

Nativo Lopez was flanked at the news conference outside the registrar’s office by a dozen Latino community leaders and several representatives of local labor organizations to initiate “the most intense year-round voter registration drive” in Orange County history by nonprofit groups working with immigrants.

Lopez, elected to the Santa Ana Unified School Board in November, and the Latino rights organization he heads are at the center of an investigation by the district attorney and secretary of state into noncitizen voting in the November election.

“Our purpose in picking up these registration forms is manifold,” he said. “But first and most importantly is to let demagogues and self-promoting politicians know that Hermandad Mexicana Nacional and the other organizations present will not be intimidated.”

Lopez criticized former Congressman Robert K. Dornan for “a racist strategy to use wedge issues to intimidate the Latino vote.” Dornan has charged that Hermandad participated in signing up noncitizens to aid the election victory by Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove). Dornan is challenging the outcome of the election in Congress.

Sanchez won the race by 984 votes. Hermandad has registered about 1,300 people countywide on affidavits it signed out from the registrar’s office. About 560 of these people voted in Sanchez’s congressional district, according to data supplied by the registrar’s office.

Lopez also said he “is shocked at shoddy and biased reporting by the Los Angeles Times.” The paper first reported in December that noncitizens who voted in November were registered with the aid of the Latino rights organization.

William Nottingham, editor of the Times Orange County Edition, said the newspaper stands by its reporting.

“In every article, we have attempted to present the facts as clearly and completely as we have been able to determine them, without favoring anyone,” he said. “While we recognize that this has become a highly charged political dispute, we don’t intend to stray from that standard.”

Prosecutors have said in papers filed in court in January that at least 227 people registered on Hermandad affidavits while in the process of becoming citizens but before they were naturalized.

Charges that his organization encouraged noncitizens to vote are “absolutely false,” Lopez said, adding “we have not identified” any people who were registered illegally by the group. He said some people “have come to us and identified themselves,” but he declined to say how many might have been involved.

Afterward, several of the Latino leaders joined him in signing for 10,000 registration affidavits that will be used in the first year of the effort.

Among those attending were representatives of the League of United Latin American Citizens and Los Amigos of Orange County.