Twelve Arrested In Orange County Voter Fraud Scheme

[villager]

Twelve Arrested In Orange County (GOP) Voter Fraud Scheme


SANTA ANA, Calif. -- The Orange County District Attorney is expected to reveal details Monday in a case in which 12 people are charged with switching registered Democrats and others to registered Republicans without their consent. Officials were tight-lipped about the arrests, saying more details will be released at a news conference with Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas and California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson.

Republican McPherson is in a close race with Democratic state Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey, who is seeking his job in the Nov. 7 election. Those arrested were paid as much as $10 for each voter they registered as Republicans, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The area includes the district represented by Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez, whose opponent, Republican Tan Nguyen, is being investigated separately for a letter his campaign office sent to Hispanic voters telling them it is illegal for immigrants to vote.
The registration fraud cases were filed Tuesday, and at least three of the defendants were arrested on Wednesday and Thursday, according to The Times.

Prosecutors refused to release any information about the defendants, including names and charges, pending Monday's news conference.

Orange County Democratic Party Chairman Frank Barbaro issued a statement commending prosecutors for charging the defendants following a probe into complaints of voter registration fraud filed over the last seven months by the Democratic Party.
"After many months of waiting for action, it is encouraging to see that District Attorney Tony Rackauckas has filed charges relating to over 500 verified complaints of voter registration fraud filed by the Democratic Party," Barbaro said. "It is also encouraging that Republican Party officials and their candidates will join District Attorney Rackauckas on Monday to hear details of these arrests. Hopefully, this is a clear sign that both parties fully support the integrity of our voting processes in Orange County."

County Democratic Party Executive Director Mike Levin said the affected voters were registered by "bounty hunters" paid by the local Republican Party for each new Republican voter they could sign up.

<snip>

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/10190012/detail.html

[Bunny]

1. Honest to god! They are so insecure about their own values

that they have to cheat to win? It's absolutely incredible how this seems to have been so deeply embedded in the modern-day Republican psyche.

[villager]

2. well, hell, these people aren't even honest about their own desires,

their own sexuality, etc.

How can they be honest about anything else?

[Bunny]

4. It's an immature and emotionally stunted way to go through life, isn't it?

[Turbineguy]

26. The Republicans have found

cheating works. It's how they've been winning.

[Cha]

54. They've found that's the only

thing that works for them..that and lying.

[Journeyman]

5. I think they're very attached to their values. . .

in this case, those values being money and how to get as much of it as they can. At $10 a registered name, and some 500 verified complaints, that's $5,000. Divided by 12 criminals gives an average of $400+ per felon. Now we know how cheaply the average Republican in Orange County values their democracy, and the price they'd sell it for. . .

[villager]

7. yes, those are "values" they'll walk the proverbial extra mile

for...

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

18. This isn't new. Richard Nixon and Donald Segretti did it at USC

They called it rat-fucking.

Win at any cost in not a new tactic in politics.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. OTOH, maybe they'll spill the beans in exchange for a plea deal.

Then heads will really roll.

[klook]

6. ..."paid by the local Republican Party"

The Orange County Republican Party paid these people up to $10 apiece to fraudulently change new voters' registrations from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

Caught red-handed! How many other local Republican Party chapters are doing this around the country?

[nashville_brook]

8. bounty hunters!

nice.

[Raksha]

55. I used to work as a contract petition circulator a few years ago.

It was political "piecework" and we were paid per signature. We also registered voters, and the Republicans were doing that too. We got a bonus (I think about $1.50--it didn't amount to a "bounty") for every new registered Republican. They focused on particular counties too--I believe at the time they were trying to increase the number of registered Republicans in very blue Los Angeles County.

It doesn't HAVE to be dishonest work unless you're a dishonest person. By law we had to say: "I get a bonus if you register Republican," but needless to say I never even encouraged anyone in that direction. I'd like to believe my soul is worth a little bit more than $1.50! I also needed a current registration myself, and had to re-register because of a change of address. My supervisor was terribly disappointed when I insisted on registering DEMOCRAT. He also started talking to me about Bill O'Reilly, who in my pre-DU innocence I had never heard of before!

Some of the people who do paid petition work are transients and you can see where they might be desperate or crooked enough to cheat to get a $10.00 bounty per signature.

[SoCalDem]

9. Weird..just plain..weird

If you are registered, does it really matter what party??

Only in a primary..

When you vote in a general election, you all have the same ballot, and you can vote for (theoretically) anyone you want to

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. The thing is, if you're going to steal an election it helps to be able

to point to the registered voters list to say "it's all in line with this- 53% republicans to 44% democrats and 3% independents. Where do you see cheating?"

[MADem]

12. Precisely--the polls are "wrong"--the result is within the margins! NT

[villager]

14. Good point -- yes, it sets up the steal, even if "the books"

are glanced at, afterwards...

[Viva_La_Revolution]

38. they hired young republicans

who fudged the registrations so they could pocket more cash. Had nothing to do with the elections numbers.

[Blue_State_Elitist]

50. Signing up to be a repuke in California

gets you sent a bunch of Arnold propaganda.

[MADem]

11. Shocked, I say....SHOCKED!!!!!

How could the VALUES crowd DO such a thing?

Could it be the only VALUE they understand is monetary? Why, that might just be it!!!!!

And what BRASS they've got--they switched even GREENS!!!! Like a TRAIN WRECK, they are!!! A hideous accident waiting to happen!!!

...One of the complaints came from Desiree Funsch, 28, of Anaheim, who said she was registered to vote as a "decline to state." Last November, she signed a petition regarding universal health care outside a supermarket. Later she got a notice mailed to a Desiree Funso, acknowledging her registration as a Republican, she said in a telephone interview.

"They forged my information onto a registration form," Funsch said.

She reported it to Kelley last December and was contacted by the district attorney and asked to put the information into a letter, which she said she did.

Barbaro said he will not be at Monday's news conference regarding the registration fraud because he will be testifying at a hearing to address the letter received by 14,000 Latino voters in Orange County.

The voter resistration charges cover at least 37 instances in which Democratic, Green Party and even one non-citizen were registered as Republicans, according to The Times....

[kestrel91316]

13. It's NOT VOTER FRAUD!!!!!!!!!! It's ELECTION fraud.

Voter fraud is fraud by voters. In this case, the prospective voters are the victims, not the perps.

Stop repeating the ReNAMBLAcan meme of "voter fraud".

[Justitia]

17. Amen, sister! -eom

[Straight Shooter]

23. In LBN, you have to post the article title as it's written.

It isn't the OP who is at fault here, it's the author of the article and the publisher.

[kestrel91316]

28. I know, I know. Still p - - - es me off!

[Straight Shooter]

30. I can relate.

So-called liberal media.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

31. Actually, this is REGISTRATION FRAUD, neither VOTE fraud nor

ELECTION fraud. IMO we need to start calling these incidents "REGISTRATION FRAUD", or we may wind up with 11 million disfranchised voters next time.

Republicans seem to have rolled out new strategies this year for trying to establish a rationale for "Voter ID" laws such as HR4844, which passed the House in September. We are just one House re-vote and one Senate vote away from having 11 million people, disproportionately Democratic voters, disfranchised in 2008.

With highly inflated per-card pay, Republicans seem to be deliberately setting up low-wage contract voter registration workers for criminal prosecution this year in multiple States.

But the very important Missouri Supreme Court decision earlier this month made clear distinctions between VOTE FRAUD and REGISTRATION FRAUD;

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From http://www.courts.mo.gov/Courts/PubOpinions.nsf/0f87ea4... :

"The plaintiffs ... presented evidence, through the testimony of state and local Missouri election officials and exhibits, that voter impersonation fraud is not a problem in Missouri and that, while there have been instances of absentee ballot and REGISTRATION FRAUD, SB 1014's photo ID requirement will not solve these fraud problems."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IMO this may be all about marketing "Voter ID" to disfranchise millions in 2008

I believe Republican operatives may have deliberately given strong monetary incentives to low-wage contract workers to falsify a few dozen registrations, just so the forgeries would be discovered and media stories like this one would be published.

Why would Republicans do that?

Do you remember a NY Times editorial about "vote suppression" though the deceptive "Voter ID" bill (HR4844) that passed the House a few weeks ago? There's a great DU thread on this with lots of good links, archived at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... .

The same people who got Dubya installed in the White House in 2001 through not counting votes in Florida have dreamed up a truly impressive scheme to replicate the 2000 election theft in every state, and in every election from 2008 onward.

The 2006 election provides the RNC its the last big oppportunity to gather examples of "voter fraud", so that at least ELEVEN MILLION voters (mainly Democrats) can be disfranchised in 2008 by a bill that will be re-introduced next year. We may be only one Senate vote away from permanent minority status for the Democratic Party starting two years from now.

Right now, "Voter ID" is a solution in search of a problem. Seeding the media with stories like this one tend to create the perception of a problem Republicans need to sell their ingenious plan.

IMO, Republican operatives in Tennessee and elsewhere may deliberately be providing low-wage contract campaign workers with incentives to falsify registrations, just so these kinds of news stories will be published, and they can use such reports as pretexts for stealing MILLIONS of votes, not just a few dozen, with "Voter ID" legislation.

If you were practically destitute and could get, say, $30 per card for falsifying as many voter registration cards as you wanted, what would you do?

No one has provided in court any evidence whatsoever that any person ever has been impersonated at the polls. But nonetheless, without any weighing of alleged benefits of "Voter ID" to its costs in disfranchisement, this ingenious scheme needs only a few dozen incidents like these to fool even experienced Democratic campaign workers into suppporting "Voter ID".

If "Voter ID" gets through the Senate (it has already passed the House as HR 4844), MILLIONS of voters WILL be disfranchised. (See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... for the best available conservative estimate, ELEVEN MILLION). Who is not likely to carry picture ID at all times? Why, people without cars or jobs to drive to every day. And who are those people, and how do they tend to vote?

IMO, it is highly unlikely anyone would try to swing an election with a few dozen impersonations of suppposedly registered voters. As several other posters in this thread have noticed, this particular scheme doesn't even make sense. The forgeries were BOUND to be caught. IMO, that must have been the motive for paying for them. If the objective were to influence elections, a much better plan would simply have been to set up voter registration tables in minority areas, have hundreds or thousands of previously registered people fill them out, and then simply throw them away after they'd all been collected and the campaign workers paid off. On election day, hundreds who wanted to vote Democratic would show up at the polls thinking they were registered. But in fact they would not be.

IMO, deliberately giving contract workers incentives to falsify registrations, to help make the case for "Voter ID", is the only explanation that makes sense here, and in similar incidents in Tennessee and elsewhere.

[drm604]

59. I think you're right about this.

What can we do about it?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

60. IMO HAVA needs to be re-written to mandate a national voting standard

for statewide elections, and mandatory cost-benefit analysis for any future changes. The national standard should IMO have the explicit goal of maximizing the proportion of the voting-age population in every demographic group in every state (INCLUDING millions incarcerated in-state and out-of-state in denominators).

Cost benefit analysis should IMO weigh the negative impact on legitimate voters of any proposal to eliminate fraudulent votes. In other words, how many thousands of legitimate votes would be suppressed for each voter impersonation or noncitizen vote prevented by a proposal like "Voter ID". As part of constitutional "strict scrutiny", State courts in Missouri and Georgia this year applied such cost-benefit analyses and found in each state hundreds of thousands of legitimate votes would be suppressed for no discernible benefit in fraudulent votes prevented. See a great DU thread on "Voter ID" at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... , including my detailed proposal for revisions to the Help Amerca Vote Act at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... .

[Le Taz Hot]

15. This stuff has been going on here

for years. The problem is that if citizens aren't willing to follow up and file complaints, nothing can be done, though we've complained for years to our county elections officials.

[Recursion]

16. What good did this do them?

If someone is so clueless as to register as a Republican without knowing it, he's also too clueless to vote for a party based on his registration, I would think.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

34. IMO Republicans delberately set up desperate contract workers for

criminal prosecution, just to get media stories like this for political use in trying to raise more barriers to voting. See post #31.

[xxqqqzme]

19. this came to light over a year ago.

A rethug appointed SoS + a rethug county government dragged their feet on this one. The rethugs must be certain they have all the machines rigged that they need to 'be elected' next week.

to dmesg - this happened during the rethuglican funded steroid boy backed 'special election' last November. During the 'signature gathering stage, to get initiatives qualified, people signing those petitions were also asked to sign a separate space to 'verify' their signature. That 'verified' signature was actually the sig line on a voter registration for. When you sign a 'petition' you have to include your address, so the SoS office can verify that you are a registered voter. The gatherers would take the 'verified' signature and fill in the address from the petition. They then made up the SS & phone #s, as well as place of birth. Then they filled in the rethug bubble in the party section. The rethuglican party, January, '06 was bragging they registered 40,000 new rethugs in November & December, '05.

Now if you have ever done voter registration, you know THE last thing any holiday shopper wants to do is register to vote. It just wasn't plausible.

Then we started getting calls @ OCDP HQs. We got even more calls after the primary when unsuspecting Democrats went to vote & discovered they were rethug registered and couldn't vote in for Democratic candidates.

[Igel]

20. It's not a partisan issue.

Bounty hunters paid by both repubs and dems cheat. The higher the pay per registration, the greater the cheating. There have already been a couple of other reports this year about fraudulent registrations being submitted, with a few cases of registration switched (that's the least harmful thing, if you ask me; wrong, but it neither false inflates the voting registry nor does it disenfranchise anybody).

There were worse cases in '04, and no shortage of them in '02 and '00. I seem to recall a trunkload of registrations from a bounty hunter employed by a left-leaning group, and a repub group in Arizona that didn't file dem registrations at all. (Hell, I knew dems in student government in college that collected repub registrations and didn't send them to the BOE. They thought it was a great joke, I was offended; they used university resources for a partisan effort. I suspect the repubs on campus would have done the same thing, but I didn't notice them having a registration drive.)

There's no telling what the party affiliation of the bounty hunters are. Low pay for scut work. They wanted money.

Silly game, really. The bounty system should be simply banned; if organizations want to have voter registration drives, great; that's what volunteers and activism are for.

[druidity33]

27. hmmm...

got any links to support the assertion that "Dems do it too"?

[seriousstan]

33. Google ACORN legal troubles.

St. Louis suspects ACORN's registration

St. Louis Election Board officials say they've discovered at least 1,492 "potentially fraudulent" voter registration cards - including three from dead people and one from a 16-year-old - among the thousands pouring in before today's voter registration deadline for the Nov. 7 election.

http://www.sanbrunobart.com/Acorn/News/061011.shtml

[druidity33]

36. maybe, maybe not...

The allegations on this site of "potentially fraudulent" registrations seem inconclusive at best.

Sounds to me like they're including illegible handwriting and blank spaces as "potentially fraudulent".

Also, the workers for Acorn get paid $8 an hour, not per signature like the Rethug operatives... what incentive do they have to cheat the system?

[Roy]

40. Not a good example..... (Acorn)

For years repubs here have signed on with Acorn in an attempt to sabotage their registration efforts.
They collect phony signatures and cry foul after they are turned in.

[Igel]

45. None needed for the point.

All I have to do is assume that dems/progressives are also human, and that they hire from the same pool that repubs do. I don't view the "other side" as subhuman, and claim my tribe is perfect, or vastly superior; just that I agree with it more than the competing tribes. I've never seen my identity in very tribal terms.

Google is your friend if you want details: www.google.com . Here's Acorn's defense: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/10/acorn-def... The site refers to other such claims in the past. To say that ACORN hired people that committed fraud is not to say ACORN committed fraud. These were isolated incidents, but far from unique; which is to say, there was no pattern to or connection between them.

ACORN merely stated the default hypothesis; anything more requires proof, not assumption based on tribal distinctions and honor. The proof was not forthcoming, so the charges were dropped; this is not to say that the fraud didn't happen, just that ACORN wasn't responsible, something I agree with. I assume the same default hypothesis without regard to party affiliation, and think it's silly to dream up excuses in order to maintain the honor of the tribe I'm currently affiliated with.

[Senator]

21. You can't "Ghost Vote" unless you "Ghost Register" first

Once you have the registration numbers high, you can then just add to the total and switch Ds to Rs in the software.

As long as you don't go over 100% Registered Rs, no one in the Euphemedia will bat an eye.

--

[villager]

22. The Ghost in the Machine, Rethug-style...

n/t

[AllexxisF1]

24. ...

Has anyone seen this picked up by the main stream press yet?

[villager]

25. it was mentioned "mid news" level around SoCal this morning...

Hasn't gone "national" yet as part of the reporting on obvious GOP patterns, behaviors, etc.

[truedelphi]

42. Let's all call Keith O. tomorrow and ask

that he cover the story 201 583 5000 - Ask for Keith or his aide

You can email his assistant Gregg at [e-mail]

[Breeze54]

29. Names of those arrested here-->

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/10190012/detail.html

Twelve Arrested In Orange County Voter Fraud Scheme

POSTED: 7:57 am PST October 30, 2006
UPDATED: 12:40 pm PST October 30, 2006

Snip-->

"It shouldn't have taken seven months to announce arrests," Millman said.
"This kind of political grandstanding should not be happening one week before the election."

Meanwhile, court appearances have been scheduled for the seven of the 12 people arrested in connection with the probe, Rackauckas said.

"What we see as the motivation is money," the district attorney said. "These people were paid up to 10 dollars apiece for registering voters.

"The Republicans paid out money for phony registrations that were of no benefit to them," Rackauckas alleged.
"The Democrats could have been deprived of the right to have voters participate as official party members."

Rackauckas said many of the people caught up in the prosecution are transients.

Those charged in the case and in custody are Daniel Bates, 36, Sal Castillo, 46, Christopher Dinoff, 31,
Rick Floyd, 52, Jason Holly, 36, Jessica Sundell, 23, and Susan Williamsen, 34.

Court appearances are scheduled through the beginning of the week, said Senior Deputy District Attorney Dan Hess.

Those charged but not yet arrested are Donahue Farrow, 34, Anthony Ogwo, 49,
Daniel Ricca, 33, Jason Hayes, 19, and Don Williams, 45.

If convicted, they face up to three years in prison.

Hess told reporters that there "were several hundred possible instances of voter fraud."

"We identified 12 different defendants who were responsible for ...
turning in the fraudulently registered voter registration cards," Hess said.
"We picked at least two to four charges per defendant that we could prosecute."

Rackauckas said the wrongdoing appeared to be confined to the signature gatherers. <--Snip

[Blue_Tires]

32. i would be very interested to see

how far up the ladder this can go, or if only the low-level operatives will be sacrificed...

FWIW Ehrlich/Steele did the same thing in 2002, but due to the buffers and middlemen, no one was able to connect their campaign directly (the campaign used the "we had thousands of workers and volunteers, and can't take personal responsibility for what they may or may not have done without our knowledge" - defense)...the judge threw out the case

[ProgressiveEconomist]

35. IMO it will be difficult to prosecute the REAL criminals here

I believe that, here and elsewhere, Republicans deliberately set up desperate contract workers for criminal prosecution, just to get media stories like this for political use in trying to raise more barriers to voting. If you were homeless and had a chance to get $10 per card for unlimited numbers of cards, what would you do? IMO, Republicans knew these pawns were bound to be caught and prosecuted, generating media stories like this one. That's exactly why they hired them and gave them the incentives they had for breaking the law. See post #31.

[Blue_Tires]

39. the laughably tragic part is

not only did that campaign i mentioned shortchange the homeless 'volunteers' they used, by only promising $5 a signature, the volunteers were stood up for the money they were owed---most didn't get a dime

[banana republican]

37. $10 a Head....

where is the money coming from????

And How do I "Flush the Head"

...

[truedelphi]

41. How did they get caught is my question?

Does anyone know that end of the story...

Husband and I just registered - we flipped a coin to see which of us would register Republican - I actually think that in the county we live in - they won't count the Democrat ballots.

We had a half a morning long debate about it.

One of the debating points he brought up is that ifyou register as a Republican but vote Democrtic maybe they will thinkyou re deranged and discount the vote.

Probably a moot point - it's all machinery now I think.

We are gonna go in and monitor the election on Tuesdy night - but I am so troubled by the idea tht I will never be able to point to a particluar ballot and say "This is my ballot and it was counted and reflected accurately my vote."

[oasis]

43. Whoop. There it is.

[NVMojo]

44. the corruption in the GOP never ends ...

[IWantAChange]

46. Repug tactics never change - It's win at all costs

because if you aren't in power someone else may be able to look at what you are really doing behind the curtain.

[garybeck]

47. can you spell S-P-R-O-U-L ???

they did this last time and i'll be they're at it again.

[endarkenment]

48. IDIOTS: that is election fraud. Voters did nothing wrong. nt.

[Norrin Radd]

49. Can we exile these people? n/t

[blondeatlast]

51. Democracy really was a beautiful thing. I'll tell my 9 year old

about how it used to be... with a sigh and a fond remembrance.

I think I'm gonna cry now.

[Lindacooks]

52. Why am I not surprised?

When I read the headline I thought 'bet you a million bucks it's the repukes who are cheating'.

[Cha]

53. Orange County? Isn't that where the repuke

sent out voter intimidation letters to Latinos?

This is endemic of the republicons. And someone said to me tonight that the repukes and the dems were the same..

[stepnw1f]

56. More Proof the GOP Has Been Stealing ELections

More and more info will come out regarding election theft.

[lovuian]

61. Yep More proof

They aren't Honest!!!

[Imagevision]

57. exposing a handfull is like putting your finger in the... dyke!

[Anakin Skywalker]

58. Desperate Republicans! LOL!

There should be a TV show on this.