Four of Targeted Voters Prove Themselves

Four voters who apparently were targeted in a congressional investigation of election fraud stepped forward Tuesday with proof they were U.S. citizens when they registered to vote, and denounced former Rep. Robert K. Dornan and his 11-month quest to regain his seat.

“It really hurt me deep inside when I found out my name was on that list” of alleged illegal voters, said Maria Jimenez, a nurse’s aide and mother of three who was born in Orange County 24 years ago. “I don’t think it’s fair for Bob Dornan to do this to me.”

The four spoke at a news conference held Tuesday by Latino community leaders who called for an end to the congressional probe, which began after Dornan’s narrow loss to Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) last November.

Dornan and his attorneys have said thousands of voters cast illegal ballots because they were not yet citizens when they voted or registered to vote. They have based their claims in part on lists generated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which checked names in its database against those of voters registered in the 46th Congressional District.

The Orange County district attorney and California secretary of state also are investigating vote fraud allegations. Their probes have focused on Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, an immigrants rights organization that offers citizenship classes and ran an aggressive voter registration drive.

Attorney Jess Araujo, who spoke at the news conference, said INS records are notoriously inaccurate and cannot be relied on to prove vote fraud. He said hundreds of legitimate voters, such as Jimenez, were inaccurately included on the list of alleged illegal voters.

Another voter was Ramon Mascorro, a 15-year California resident and a citizen since June 1996. He registered to vote two weeks after taking the oath.

“My major desire in becoming a citizen was to have the right to vote,” said Mascorro, who owns an electronics business in Santa Ana and wore a tiny U.S. flag in the lapel of his suit jacket. “But I guess my big mistake was to register to vote with Hermandad Mexicana Nacional because then they were investigated.”

The four who spoke on Tuesday were among several hundred who were identified as possible illegal voters in an INS computer match last spring. They were contacted by volunteers for Sanchez who defeated Dornan last November by 984 votes.

“I personally checked 75 and I didn’t find anybody who voted illegally,” said Consuelo Smith, one of the volunteers. “I found people who were born here, people who were citizens for 20 years, but they were all citizens when they voted.”

Nervous and reluctant to speak in front of a crush of television and newspaper reporters, three voters held up naturalization certificates, which they received before registering to vote through Hermandad.

Virginia Ochoa, 70, said she lived in California since 1958, raised 11 children and became a citizen last June. Her oldest son served in Vietnam, she said, and a daughter works in the White House. She held up her naturalization certificate and said in a shaky voice, “I felt very bad when they said I made a fraud. This is what hurts me the most.”

Toribio Chacon, a factory worker from Santa Ana, said he became a citizen in March 1996 after taking classes at Hermandad. His brother-in-law, who took the oath a month earlier, also is a target of the probe, he said.

“I’m under investigation and I want to know why,” he said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

All four said they had not yet been contacted by investigators, congressional staff members or Dornan volunteers, although their names, along with photos of their naturalization certificates and birth certificates, were forwarded to the investigating congressional committee by Sanchez last April.

Wylie A. Aitken, who chaired Sanchez’s campaign, said that to his knowledge, the congressional committee has not followed up on the information, which he said showed the INS lists were at least 70% inaccurate.

“To my knowledge, they have not knocked on a single door, not sent out a single investigator. All they’ve done, as far as I know, is sit back in Washington and played with the INS records,” he said. Alex Nogales, of Citizens for Democracy, a group formed to defend Hermandad and voters targeted by the probe, said he hoped to pressure committee members by bringing the voters forward.

“We decided, ‘Enough is enough. Let us put a face to this,’ ” he said. “Now every influence we can bring to bear will be brought to bear to bring this to a close.”