Orange County Grand Jury Hears Testimony in Voting Case

Nearly a year after local and state investigations began, the Orange County Grand Jury has started hearing testimony about allegations that a Latino rights group registered ineligible voters for the 1996 election.

The 19-member grand jury first questioned witnesses last Friday and continued this week, sources said. Several employees of the group, Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, were subpoenaed to testify Tuesday and two appeared at the district attorney’s office before noon.

Former Rep. Robert K. Dornan has contended that voting by noncitizens cost him his 46th Congressional District seat. He lost by 984 votes to Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove). Congress is investigating Dornan’s charges that there were a sufficient number of fraudulent votes to unseat Sanchez and force a new election.

Hermandad has denied any wrongdoing, saying that the investigations are motivated by the political agenda of Republicans who want to aid Dornan and keep Latinos from voting.

The district attorney’s office declined to confirm the grand jury’s involvement or discuss details of the investigation of allegations of voting fraud in the 1996 election.

“We are still reviewing the matter,” said Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. Maury Evans. “I have no further comment than that.”

The secretary of state’s office, which has assisted in the investigation, also declined to discuss its status.

The Hermandad employees subpoenaed to appear Tuesday are involved in clerical work and data processing, said a source within the Latino rights group. They were accompanied to the grand jury proceedings by Hermandad attorney Mark Rosen.

The witnesses declined to be interviewed and Rosen refused to comment.

Also subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury Tuesday was a 36-year-old Fullerton man who said he attended classes at Hermandad “a few years ago.”

The Fullerton man was among 1,160 people registered to vote in 1996 by Hermandad on voter registration cards issued to the group by the registrar, according to court records. He cast an absentee ballot in the election although he was not a naturalized citizen, according to an INS document filed with Congress.

The investigation of voting by ineligible people began several weeks before the Nov. 5 election. At that time, the district attorney’s office received a complaint from the registrar of voters, describing at least one instance in which someone not yet a citizen allegedly was improperly registered to vote at Hermandad’s Santa Ana office. The investigation broadened after the election, when Dornan filed a complaint with the secretary of state’s office.

In the last 12 months, investigators working for the district attorney and the secretary of state have interviewed dozens of people associated with Hermandad and searched its Santa Ana offices. Investigators have also gained the unprecedented cooperation of the Immigration and Naturalization Service to match voter rolls with immigration records to determine the possible extent of voting by those ineligible to do so.

In March, Secretary of State Bill Jones released an analysis of 1,160 people registered to vote by Hermandad on registration cards issued to the group, finding that 721 people countywide had apparently not completed the citizenship process before they registered. Of that number, investigators contend, at least 442 unlawfully voted in the election. In the 46th Congressional District, at least 303 voted unlawfully, Jones said.

The numbers and their reliability, however, are hotly disputed by Sanchez and some Latino leaders, who say INS records are incomplete and filled with errors.