Man Pleads Guilty to Voting in Orange, Riverside Counties

An El Toro airport opponent with homes in Orange and Riverside counties has pleaded guilty to voting twice in two elections, becoming the first person prosecuted for that crime under a state program to reduce voter fraud, authorities said Thursday.

Erik Ostergaard, 61, was sentenced in Orange County Superior Court to three years of probation and 40 hours of community service for illegally voting twice in 1998 and 2000 elections, prosecutors said. Ostergaard, who has homes in Laguna Woods and Palm Desert, also was ordered to pay $775 in court fines and fees.

“This is not part of some organized voter fraud conspiracy,” said Pete Pierce, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case. “He’s a guy who never violated a law prior to this, which is why we decided to pursue it only as a misdemeanor.”

In interviews, Pierce said, Ostergaard revealed that, as the owner of property in south Orange County, he was concerned that if the former Marine base at El Toro becomes an international airport, the value of his property would be hurt. In an Orange County referendum, he voted against building the airport, while also voting in Riverside County, the prosecutor said.

“On the one hand,” Pierce said, “Mr. Ostergaard is not a criminal. On the other hand, I think it’s pretty important to follow all the rules when we vote, and one of the rules is that you only vote once.”

Ostergaard’s attorney, Bruce “Red” Benson, could not be reached for comment.

The case resulted from a California program launched in 1996 that uses computers to track voters who are registered in more than one county at the same time. Previously, said Alfie Charles, a spokesman for the California secretary of state’s office, each of the 58 counties kept its own independent local voter rolls. Under the new system, he said, the counties are networked in a way that allows them to cross-reference voter files.

“The system was designed to help keep the voter registration rolls clean so we don’t leave names in an old county when someone dies or moves away,” Charles said. “It also allows us to see when somebody has voted in more than one county.”

Charles said the program is part of Secretary of State Bill Jones’ broad effort to monitor voter registration and reduce voter fraud. The effort followed the 1996 election, in which former Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) accused Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, an Orange County-based Latino civil rights group, of illegally registering noncitizens to vote.

A grand jury declined to file charges against anyone in that case, and the U.S. House Oversight Committee in 1998 concluded an investigation without finding any proof that enough noncitizens had voted in the 46th Congressional District to make a difference in the race, which Dornan lost to Democrat Loretta Sanchez.

But the secretary of state and county registrar began a probe that ultimately identified hundreds of noncitizens registered to vote. In an effort to clean up the voter rolls statewide, Jones launched the anti-fraud program at the same time.

The computer network would not prevent noncitizens from voting, Charles said. But by detecting voters who cast ballots in more than one county, he said, it will further the state’s goal of “100% voter participation and zero tolerance for voter fraud.”

One of 18 convictions attributed to the voter fraud program since 1998, Ostergaard’s is the first in Orange County and the first anywhere involving double voting. The other cases, Charles said, were in San Bernardino, San Joaquin, Sacramento and Marin counties and involved allegations of perjury, forgery, filing false information in a declaration of candidacy, registering fictitious persons or filing petitions with fictitious signatures and false affidavits.

Ostergaard was singled out, investigators said, after a routine check indicated that he had voted in both Orange County and Riverside County, where he maintains his primary residence in Palm Desert.