No Fraud Is Found in Voter Rolls

The Riverside County registrar of voters found no evidence of election fraud in a hotly contested state Assembly district where some voters had duplicate registrations under slightly altered names or other personal information, officials announced Tuesday.

“It doesn’t indicate that there [was] an implicit effort to defraud,” said Registrar Barbara Dunmore. “Instead, it appears to be honest mistakes and difficulties on the part of voters or those who assisted them in registering.”

The secretary of state’s office had asked Dunmore to investigate allegations by Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia (R-Cathedral City), who charged that voters were being registered multiple times in her 80th Assembly District, which spans eastern Riverside County and Imperial County.

Garcia is being challenged by Democrat Mary Ann Andreas, a tribal leader of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, in the Nov. 2 election. The district is one of the state’s few close legislative races this year.

Garcia filed a complaint with county elections officials, prosecutors and the secretary of state’s office, alleging what she believed to be more than 2,000 fraudulent voter registrations in the counties.

Some voters apparently registered multiple times using slight name, birthday and address variations, she said.

Dunmore’s office conducted an investigation by randomly checking three of the 41 pages of Riverside County voter registrations that Garcia submitted with her complaint. The three pages contained 139 registrations. Though many of the registrations were duplicates, Dunmore determined that they were caused by simple mistakes, such as poor penmanship or legal name changes.

The Republican and Democratic parties have been conducting strong voter-registration drives in the district and have paid several independent contractors as much as $8 for every person they registered. In those aggressive efforts, some voters may have unintentionally registered more than once, Dunmore said.

“Of course, when we have these registration drives going on hot and heavy at this point ... it tends to lead to more duplicate registrations,” she said. “That is something we always strive for: to eliminate duplicates within our system.”

Dunmore, who became the registrar in July, said she wanted to review the maintenance schedule of the county’s voters rolls. Computer software flags potential multiple registrations.

Attempts to reach Garcia, who won her seat by fewer than 2,500 voters in 2002, were unsuccessful late Tuesday.

Eric Jaye, a consultant on Andreas’ campaign, said he was worried that Garcia was trying to suppress voter turnout in the district, where Democrats hold an edge in registrations.

“We think it’s very appropriate for the registrar to take a close look at the every new registration to make sure it’s valid, and we’re happy that they’ve done that,” he said.