Addresses of Voters Questioned in Compton

If all politics is local, as the saying goes, it’s downright communal in the city of Compton.

But is it voter fraud, as some contend?

Compton’s municipal code says that no more than six people not related by blood or marriage can live under one roof. And state law says it is a felony to knowingly register to vote at an address where one doesn’t live.

Yet City Councilwoman Delores Zurita shares her home with eight people, and so does fellow Councilwoman Marcine Barnett Shaw, according to the county’s voter registration rolls.

And then there’s Compton Mayor Omar Bradley, who, according to voter records signed under penalty of perjury, shares a modest one-floor, two-bath ranch house with no fewer than 15 people.

That house in the 1800 block of West 131st Street is owned by Bradley’s sister, Compton Unified School District board member Carol Bradley Jordan. Also registered as living there are city consultant Melvin Stokes and his wife, Carolyn, and Frank Kahlil Wheaton, the official spokesman for Bradley and the city of Compton.

All three of them, however, live someplace else. Bradley chalks it up to people in Compton having large extended families, many of whom move in and out of the same home over the years and at times forget to update their voter registrations.

“My explanation for anybody who has a lot of people registered at their house . . . is that in Compton, it’s a tradition,” Bradley said. “We don’t move our voter registration” even when they move.

That’s why he keeps his registration at the tiny house in which he was raised, although it is now owned by his sister.

Many of the other people registered there are immediate members of Bradley’s large family, including five brothers and two sisters.

It’s all very innocent, Bradley and others say. Zurita and Shaw declined to comment.

Wheaton and Melvin Stokes said they’re still registered at the Bradley home because they were close friends of the family and because Bradley’s parents asked them to register. Stokes said he essentially “lived there” after his parents died when he was growing up, “and I just never changed it,” although he now owns a house in Compton.

In recent weeks, however, some critics of Compton politics have suggested far more nefarious motives for the mass registrations.

“Can you say voter fraud?” proclaims a flier circulating in Compton as part of a recall effort against the outspoken mayor.

That flier focuses on the 15 people registered along with Bradley at his family home.

Supporters of the recall effort say that the registrations are just the latest indication that elected officials for years have been trying to sway Compton elections by lining up family members, friends and supporters--and even helping them gain voter eligibility by offering them an address to list.

The flier also targets freshman Councilman Amen Rahh, who is registered at one house though he also lives in another outside the district he represents.

Critics note that Rahh’s victory has finally given Bradley a majority on the council that allows him to push through an ambitious political agenda.

The address Rahh gave as his residence is actually another home owned by Bradley’s sister.

Rahh says that the voters who elected him knew that he kept an apartment in the district and lived with his wife somewhere else, but voted for him anyway.

Critics, however, want authorities to review the matter.

“It’s that old cliche: Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” said Eric Perrodin, a recall leader who got involved a few months ago after Bradley and his aides put his brother, Police Capt. Percy Perrodin, on administrative leave along with Police Chief Hourie Taylor for publicly unspecified reasons.

Perrodin stresses that he has no proof of voter fraud or electoral hanky-panky. Still, Perrodin, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, said: “There needs to be an investigation, definitely.”

State law requires that when registering to vote, people must list their domicile, their permanent living address. The voter registration form clearly states that it is a felony to knowingly provide false information, including the place of residence, punishable by fines and up to four years in jail.

Clifford Klein, head prosecutor in the district attorney’s office of special investigations, said the Compton voter registration irregularities appear to be sufficient to warrant an investigation by his voter fraud unit.

“We would look into that,” said Klein. “We would want to determine whether there were any violations of the election code.”

Nicholas Koumjian, head of the district attorney’s election fraud unit, says that if people admit that they’re living in one house and registered in another, that is a criminal violation--no matter how innocent the reason.

“If we can prove that that is not their residence and they knew that it was not their residence and put it down, we would file criminal charges,” Koumjian said. “Whether they were intending to help someone win election or not is irrelevant; it is not our job to interfere with the political process. We just look and see whether or not a crime has been committed and whether we can prove that beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Klein and Koumjian cautioned that investigating allegations of election code violations is one thing. Proving them is another.

The reason? They must prove that people “knowingly” broke the law by putting down an erroneous address on their voter registration forms. They also must prove that they don’t live where they say they do.

“They can always say they just sleep there at night,” Koumjian said. “What are you going to do, set up a video camera there?”

The wording of the voter registration forms doesn’t make things any easier for prosecutors, because it seems to allow someone to live in two places at once.

The registration form says that one must register at whatever place is both their “residence and domicile.” One may not, it warns, use a “business, mailing or secondary address.”

The law then proceeds to say that a person can have just one “domicile” or permanent residence, and is supposed to register there. But it also says they can live at a more temporary “residence” where “he or she does not have the intention of remaining.”

Also, “at any given time, a person may have more than one residence.”

“It’s confusing,” county Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack said of the law. “It makes it hard to determine when someone is doing something on purpose and when it’s because they don’t know any better.”

Times correspondent Monte Morin contributed to this story.