House Panel Asks INS to Verify O.C. Voters’ Citizenship
The congressional committee refereeing the voter fraud dispute between former Rep. Robert K. Dornan and Rep. Loretta Sanchez asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service on Friday to verify the citizenship of all of Orange County’s 1.3 million voters.
Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Bakersfield), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, asked INS Commissioner Doris Meissner to check the entire county voter role against its citizenship records.
Thomas asked the INS to provide his committee with a list of voters who were “noncitizens at the time they registered to vote.”
An INS spokesman said Friday that the agency would consider the request. The INS is already considering a request by California Secretary of State Bill Jones to check the citizenship of all the county’s voters. A limited search by Jones and the INS in March determined that as many as 303 people registered to vote before they were citizens and cast ballots in the 46th Congressional District election between Sanchez and Dornan.
Steve Jost, chief of staff to Sanchez, said the Thomas request could violate the privacy rights of thousands of legal residents.
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