Another case of voting fraud
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| Thu, 10-14-2004 - 2:36pm |
Voter fraud report draws state inquiry
GOP canvassing tactics and an account of mishandled registrations for Democrats prompts the investigation
Thursday, October 14, 2004
JEFF MAPES
Oregon state officials said Wednesday they will investigate reports that a Republican canvasser may have trashed voter registration forms from Democrats.
Secretary of State Bill Bradbury and Attorney General Hardy Myers said they have launched an investigation after receiving three complaints alleging voter-registration irregularities.
The inquiry was prompted by a report on KGW(8) Tuesday night of a canvasser named Michael Johnson, 20, who said he worked for an unidentified group that sought to register Republican voters. According to KGW, Johnson said that if he received a Democratic registration, "he might throw that card in the trash."
The decision to investigate also followed a news report in Las Vegas that two canvassers witnessed supervisors ripping up registration cards signed by Democrats. And it also followed weeks of complaints by local Democrats that paid canvassers in several Oregon locations were pressuring people to register as Republicans.
Bradbury said he could not discuss the specifics of the complaints now that an investigation is under way. But he said he was "very concerned" about the possibility that anyone's registration form was discarded.
"That's the ultimate form of disenfranchisement," said Bradbury.
The Republican National Committee, which has hired an Arizona firm to register voters in Oregon and several other battleground states, said it had a "zero-tolerance policy" and accused groups allied with the Democrats of engaging in their own voter-registration irregularities.
In Oregon, canvassers hired by Arizona-based Sproul & Associates have been working in several cities to register voters. Canvassers who have worked for the firm reported receiving from $3 to $10 for each Republican they registered. Sometimes they said they also received money for registering an independent who planned to vote for President Bush.
Firm criticized by librarians
Nathan Sproul, the firm's owner, said he has not found any records that Johnson has worked for his firm or any of its subcontractors. He said in an earlier interview with The Oregonian that his canvassers typically wear Republican paraphernalia and are trying to attract supporters of the president.
When asked whether his canvassers would turn in a Democratic registration, Sproul said: "If they ask us to turn it in, we will turn in a Democrat."
Sproul's firm also sought to start a separate voter registration drive in Oregon libraries that he said would have been nonpartisan. That ran into opposition from librarians, particularly after some learned that Sproul was using the same name used by a Democratic get-out-the-vote group called America Votes. Sproul refused to say whether his library effort was also financed by the Republican Party.
Under state law, anyone accepting a voter registration is required to turn it into an elections office within the next five days. Bradbury said he had been mistaken when he earlier said that it was also a crime for a canvasser to refuse to accept a registration.
Neel Pender, executive director of the Oregon Democratic Party, said he has received complaints for weeks of people pressured by canvassers to register as Republicans.
One example of this reportedly occurred on the Portland State University campus Tuesday, according to the PSU Vanguard. The newspaper said several students were asked to sign a petition to lower auto insurance for young people and then to sign a separate form for the purposes of "verification." The newspaper said the form turned out to be a registration card that was already marked as Republican. The petitioners refused to identify themselves.
The deadline to register to vote passed Tuesday after activists from several partisan and nonpartisan groups conducted a flurry of activities that pushed the total number of voters above 2 million, an increase of roughly 200,000 since May. The secretary of state's office has not yet released final registration figures.
Democratic forms ripped up
In Las Vegas, KLAS-TV reported that two workers for Voters Outreach of America saw the Democratic registration forms being ripped up. One of them said he took some of the trashed forms to the local elections office and found that the registrations had not been filed with the county, as the law required. Sproul said the firm was one of his subcontractors and he called the allegations "100 percent inaccurate."
He said the canvasser cited in the work was a disgruntled employee who had been fired for poor performance.
Jeff Mapes: 503-221-8209; jeffmapes@news.oregonian.com

In the last week, I've learned from Bush supporters on this forum that this kind of behavior is only done by Democrats.
Myself, I'd rather see voter fraud reduced to a nuisance level. Perhaps we can execute a global test for verifying registrations.