Reply #8: Here's more in MI & OH - Campaign workers suspected of fraud

[DoYouEverWonder]

Voter-registration problems probed

September 23, 2004

Overzealous or unscrupulous campaign workers in several Michigan counties are under investigation for voter-registration fraud, suspected of attempting to register nonexistent people or forging applications for already-registered voters, election and law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

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State Elections Director Christopher Thomas said he hoped criminal prosecutions would result. Thomas, who has held his post for more than 20 years, said the scale of voter-registration drives this year and the irregularities were like nothing he had seen before.

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Representatives from two groups whose workers have submitted apparently-fraudulent applications -- the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan (PIRGIM) and Project Vote -- downplayed the issue Wednesday, insisting that it involved only a handful of workers and a limited number of registrations.

David Leland, national director of Project Vote, said fewer than 100 of the thousands of applications his group has collected in Detroit, Pontiac and other four other urban centers had been identified as fraudulent.

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There have been scattered reports of similar voter-registration problems from around the country. The Project Vote office in Ohio fired two workers earlier this year for submitting bogus voter applications.

http://www.freep.com/news/mich/register23e_20040923.htm