Proof Appears Lacking; Dornan’s Fervor Isn’t

After nearly six months of searching, former Congressman Robert K. Dornan doesn’t appear to have found enough illicit ballots to overturn his loss to Rep. Loretta Sanchez.

But he isn’t giving up.

On Saturday, Dornan and his lawyers will stand before a high-powered congressional panel at the County Hall of Administration and make their best case for nullifying Sanchez’s 984-vote upset last November.

In new papers released late Thursday to be submitted to Congress, they are hinting that they might already have more than enough tainted ballots.

“I believe this seat was stolen by noncitizen voting,” the former congressman says, repeating the mantra that has sustained him through his election challenge.

So far, however, Dornan has not proved his case.

In papers filed with Congress in February, Dornan contends that he and his investigators have discovered at least 1,789 illegal ballots.

Yet a close review of Dornan’s contentions shows them to be overstated and riddled with inaccuracies.

According to information compiled by several government agencies, and analyzed by The Times, Dornan and his investigators have, at most, discovered 440 illicit ballots in the central Orange County district he used to represent.

The overwhelming majority of those ballots come from one place: Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, the Santa Ana Latino rights organization that registered as many as 372 voters before they had become citizens.

That’s far less than Dornan needs to unseat Sanchez. And Dornan has provided little new evidence to suggest that he can find any more unlawful ballots.

That may all change Saturday, in what is expected to be only the first of several hearings into the Sanchez-Dornan race.

“We expect to demonstrate that there were hundreds of noncitizens that voted in this election,” Dornan attorney Bill Hart said. “There were other significant anomalies in the vote tabulation, and in the people who were allowed to vote.”

In particular, Dornan and his lawyers want the government to look into whatever citizenship records exist for each of the 106,255 people who voted in the 46th Congressional District race. They are emboldened by the amount of alleged fraud they’ve already found in only a few short months, and intend to delve even more deeply with the congressional committee’s blessing.

The prospect of giving Dornan more time, however, angers Sanchez, the Garden Grove Democrat.

Sanchez said Dornan hasn’t found enough illegal ballots to overturn the election, and hasn’t put forward any new evidence to show there are any more questionable votes.

It’s time, Sanchez said, for Dornan to give up.

“Bob Dornan has had six months to substantiate his charges, and he hasn’t done it,” Sanchez said. “Are there are enough fraudulent ballots to change the outcome of this election? The answer is no.”

The face-off--between the mercurial Dornan and the giant-killer Sanchez--promises to turn Saturday’s hearing into a raucous and memorable event. Inside Santa Ana’s Hall of Administration, three out-of-town congressmen will try to sift through conflicting arguments over how many illegal votes were cast and whether to keep the Dornan challenge alive. Outside, hundreds of demonstrators recruited by Hermandad are expected to be marching in the streets.

The hearing will set the stage for a larger clash in the halls of Congress. For whatever is decided Saturday, an eight-member congressional committee--and perhaps the House of Representatives itself--will have the final say over whether Dornan gets a new election.

The Republicans, who control Congress, have made it clear they intend to search carefully for evidence of voter fraud--no matter how long it takes.

“We thought the allegations were credible,” said Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Bakersfield), who chairs the House Oversight Committee. “I can assure you that this task force will investigate what happened in this election.”

On Wednesday, the committee voted to compel community groups and individuals to turn over documents subpoenaed by Dornan’s attorneys. Sanchez’s chief of staff said the congresswoman will take to the full House her fight against subpoenas for her campaign documents and financial records.

Sanchez and the Democrats promise, however, that they will fight any attempt to obtain information from the people Dornan has targeted unless he provides specific evidence of wrongdoing.

They say Dornan’s inquiry would violate the privacy of thousands of voters and set a terrible precedent.

“In any election in the future, anybody could walk in and say there has been fraud,” said Fred Woocher, a Los Angeles lawyer working for Sanchez. “And they would be given all the power in the world to investigate. That’s my fear.”

Both sides are bracing for a fight in an arena where the rules aren’t clear.

“This is absolutely virgin territory,” said Mark Braden, counsel to the House Oversight Committee.

The politicians who will decide whether Dornan gets a new election promise to banish politics and stick to math.

Braden, the legal counsel, said the House Oversight Committee intends to hold Dornan to a tough standard. For Congress to even consider granting a new election, Dornan must show, at a minimum, that 984 votes were fraudulently cast. That was his margin of defeat.

“Under no circumstances will the seat be vacated unless Dornan meets the burden,” Braden said. “And the burden is that Dornan would have won if it weren’t for the fraud.”

The standards haven’t always been so strict. In a notorious congressional election in Indiana in 1984, the Democratic leadership bypassed the law, drew up its own rules, Republicans say, and handed a victory to the Democratic candidate. The Republicans have not forgotten that loss. But Braden, who worked on the case at the time, said the Republicans won’t break the rules to avenge the Indiana case.

“It was an absolute nightmare, and a dangerous precedent,” Braden said of the 1984 Indiana election. “No one wants to see it happen again.”

So the key question facing the congressional task force Saturday is: How many fraudulent ballots has Dornan actually uncovered?

In papers filed with Congress in February, Dornan contended he had found 1,789.

Sanchez countered that Dornan cooked his numbers--that, at best, he had uncovered 170 tainted ballots.

The actual number of illicit ballots uncovered so far probably lies somewhere between the Dornan and Sanchez estimates--and it appears to be far less than what Dornan needs.

Based on dozens of interviews with voters, and information gleaned from the registrar of voters, the secretary of state and the district attorney, here is an analysis of Dornan’s contentions:

Noncitizens Voting

Dornan contends that 520 people registered to vote on cards supplied by Hermandad Mexicana Nacional before they completed the citizenship process and then cast ballots in his congressional race.

Sanchez said the number doesn’t exceed 145 and is probably closer to 70. The most thorough estimate so far has been conducted by Secretary of State Bill Jones, who found 303 “unlawful” votes by people who registered prematurely and voted.

Sanchez argues that Jones’ number is still too large because it is based on Immigration and Naturalization Service records that critics say are notoriously unreliable. She also points out that many people who registered at Hermandad did so before they were citizens, but were sworn in by the time they voted.

That, she said, made their votes legal.

Both Dornan and Jones disagree on this point, and state law plainly says that only citizens may register. The task force will probably have the final say.

“The law is absolutely clear,” said Beth Miller, a spokeswoman for Jones.

Illegal Immigrants Voting

In his filing with Congress, Dornan alleges that as many as 102 illegal immigrants voted in the election.

Sanchez counters that there is no evidence of voting by illegal immigrants.

Here is what is known for sure: When the INS checked the 1,160 people who registered to vote at Hermandad, there were 69 people born outside of the United States for whom they could find no records and who voted in the 46th Congressional District.

Dornan said that means these people are likely illegal immigrants.

But Sanchez said her investigators have interviewed many of those 69 people for whom the INS has no record and found they were indeed citizens.

“We have gone out and interviewed these people, and they have showed us their naturalization certificates,” Sanchez said.

The upshot: Only an exhaustive search of government records and interviews with dozens of voters would provide conclusive proof.

Improper Absentee Ballots

Dornan alleges to have found 128 absentee ballots that were improperly delivered to polling places by people other than the actual voters.

Sanchez said the number is zero.

According to California law, if a voter cannot return his or her ballot because of illness or handicap, the voter may designate the following people to do so: husband or wife, mother or father, child, grandchild, brother or sister.

Dornan said he has discovered many ballots that were carried in by friends and relatives not allowed under the law.

Registrar of Voters Rosalyn Lever said she found only four definite cases in which the ballots were not properly executed.

Lever said Dornan was simply wrong on 64 of the ballots he singled out--that they were either carried in by people authorized by the statute, sent in by mail or mistakenly counted twice by the Dornan team.

The remaining 60 ballots were carried in by people not authorized by the law. But even then, Lever said, those ballots may be valid after all.

Lever cites a statute indicating that all absentee ballot provisions “shall be liberally construed in favor of the absent voter.” That means that if Sanchez can show that the 60 voters otherwise cast valid votes, they may be admitted, she said.

“I find it hard to believe that a judge would declare these ballots invalid,” she said.

Unexplained Ballots

Dornan had alleged that election workers counted 924 more ballots than the registrar’s computer can actually account for.

“There are more ballots in the ballot box than voters,” Hart said.

Sanchez countered that the contention is groundless.

And Registrar of Voters Lever agrees.

“He’s just wrong,” Lever said of Dornan.

Dornan has provided no evidence to show that the discrepancy in the numbers constitutes fraud. But Dornan attorney Hart said he will prove that Lever’s work is not to be trusted.

Furthermore, few irregularities were discovered at the official recount, which Dornan staffers attended. County staffers also checked the number of ballots against the number of voter signatures and say they found no significant irregularities.

Lever said Dornan is neglecting to count an entire category of voters--those who renewed their registrations after the Oct. 7 deadline. There are 464 of them, records show.

Lever said the remaining 460 are keystroke errors made by election staffers who were filling out the official record. She said the voters’ ballots were counted, but the fact that they voted was not recorded on the registrar’s computer.

Voting Twice

Dornan contended that at least 76 people voted twice in the election.

Sanchez counters that nobody voted twice.

To support this contention, Dornan submitted a list of 17 pairs of names. It is not clear how Dornan intends to substantiate the other votes.

Interviews by The Times with the people named by Dornan turned up two ballots that were likely to be invalid, and those errors appeared to be unintentional.

The other cases cited by Dornan appeared to be legitimate voters who Dornan confused as being one person: identical twins with similar names, fathers and sons with the same names, and people registered twice who voted only once.

Dornan also contended that 39 people voted from their businesses even though they lived elsewhere. Sanchez said the number is three.

Interviews with the voters named by Dornan found two voters fitting that description. The rest of the voters cited by Dornan either lived at their businesses or were misidentified.

The House Hearing:

* Scholars question subpoenas’ constitutionality. A22

* Summary of key issues surrounding the inquiry. A22

* Dornan targets registrar’s handling of election. A22

* Who and what the public can expect Saturday. A22

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Squaring Off

The House Contested Elections Task Force will hear testimony Saturday into former U.S. Rep. Robert K. Dornan’s allegations that he lost his congressional seat by 984 votes to Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) because of voting irregularities. The public is invited but will not be given an opportunity to speak.

Hearing Agenda

Opening Remarks

Task force chairman Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.) and colleagues Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) may make opening statements.

Government Officials

Bill Jones, California secretary of state

Michael R. Capizzi, Orange County district attorney

Richard K. Rogers, district director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Los Angeles office

Rosalyn Lever , Orange County registrar of voters

Lunch Break

Dornan-Sanchez Presentations

Dornan team (45 minutes)

Sanchez team (45 minutes)

Dornan team response (30 minutes)

Sanchez team response (30 minutes)

****

He Says, She Says

Here are Dornan’s contentions regarding voting irregularities, Sanchez’s position, and what the best evidence shows:

*--*

Dornan Sanchez Likely says says number Noncitizens voting 520 70-145 303 Illegal immigrant voting* 102 0 0-69 Unexplained ballots 924 0 0 Double voting 76 O 2 Improper registration at business 39 3 2 Improper absentee ballots 128 0 4-64 Total votes in question 1,789 73-148 311-440

*--*

* Voters born outside the U.S. who may or may not be citizens, but whose immigration status has not been verified

****

Public Access

Hearing begins at 8:30 a.m.

Hall of Administration hearing room seats 180 people; overflow room seats about 120 more

Parking is available at the Hall of Administration for $12 per day

Additional pay-for-parking lots are available in the Civic Center area

****

Panel’s Players

Panel members appointed to determine whether Dornan’s claims have merit:

Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.), chairman, calls hearing a fact-finding mission into a serious charge that deserves a closer look. A nuclear physicist, Ehlers, 63, has been labeled one of the “brainiest” members of Congress. Elected in 1993.

Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), a former teacher, has voiced concern that Sanchez is pressuring the panel to quickly wrap up its work. Ney, 42, says existing evidence of voter fraud has unsettled him, creating enough “smoke” to warrant an in-depth investigation. Elected in 1994.

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), an attorney, has accused Dornan of embarking on a “fishing expedition” and his colleagues on the panel of sanctioning it. Hoyer, 57, was elected in 1981. He was a key player when Democrats controlled Congress.

Sources: California secretary of state, Orange County registrar of voters, Almanac of American Politics 1996, Times reports