Thread: Suspicious voter registration cards found in Sacramento County

Suspicious voter registration cards found in Sacramento County

By Brad Branan
bbranan@sacbee.com
Published: Saturday, May. 5, 2012 - 12:00 am | Page 3B

Sacramento County's top elections official says she has turned over suspicious voter registration cards to the California Secretary of State's Office.

Jill LaVine, the county's registrar of voters, said her office has found widespread irregularities in cards submitted by a company hired by the Republican Party to conduct a registration drive.

Circulators working for businesswoman Monica Harris are filling out registration cards for prospective voters and asking them simply to sign their names, LaVine said.

Many county residents have called LaVine's office to complain when they found out – via a registration confirmation card sent by the county – that they were registered as Republicans when they didn't want to be, LaVine said.

Since September, Harris' circulators have turned in about 31,000 registration cards to the county. At least one-fourth of them have been thrown out because of inaccuracies, LaVine said.

The problem is happening because circulators are paid for each card they submit, LaVine said.

A person who identified himself as Harris' son at Momentum Political Services, her Sacramento company, said Harris was out of state and unavailable for comment.

Shannan Velayas, a spokeswoman for the Secretary of State's Office, said the office considers complaints to be confidential. Such complaints are investigated by the office's election fraud unit and forwarded to a county's district attorney when criminal activity is found.

LaVine said she has had problems with circulators working for Harris for years. She said her office started documenting questionable cards in September.

The cards often contain writing that is too sloppy to read, or transposed numbers.

Many of them turn out to be inaccurate – 24 percent can't be entered into the county system because of various problems on the cards themselves, LaVine said.

The county has found other irregularities when it sent out verification cards to residents. In one stretch, the county had 82 of 84 cards returned because they didn't contain a known address, she said.

About 20 people who received cards have called LaVine's office to complain that they were registered for the wrong party, she said.

Suspicious voter registration cards found in Sacramento County - Elections - The Sacramento Bee

It is very, very important to observe what is at the heart of this attempt to corrupt our system of government. It is registering voters with a political party. There is absolutely no reason why the government should be keeping records of party affiliation. It is nobody's business what political party you belong to and it is nowhere a constitutional requirement that registering to vote requires reporting a political party. The only argument anyone has for registering voters with a political party is for purposes of the primary elections. There is no constitutional reason that we have for running primary elections. The only reason we run primary elections is as a public service to the political parties, paid for by the taxpayers for the benefit of the political parties and nobody else. The political parties are private institutions and should not benefit from this government service.

Abolish the primary elections system, let the political parties run their own elections. Make it a crime to collect party affiliation for purposes of voter registration.

Originally Posted by pkskyali

It is very, very important to observe what is at the heart of this attempt to corrupt our system of government. It is registering voters with a political party. There is absolutely no reason why the government should be keeping records of party affiliation . . .

In CA., I don't know about other states, the voter is NOT required to specify a party affiliation. You can put NONE or check DECLINES TO STATE. Listing your political party is optional.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

In CA., I don't know about other states, the voter is NOT required to specify a party affiliation. You can put NONE or check DECLINES TO STATE. Listing your political party is optional.

I'm in California too and I know that it is not required. That's not enough to me, voter registration should not be collecting party affiliation from registering voters. You should not be able to submit party affiliation when registering to vote, there should be no government records of party affiliation.

Originally Posted by pkskyali

I'm in California too and I know that it is not required. That's not enough to me, voter registration should not be collecting party affiliation from registering voters. You should not be able to submit party affiliation when registering to vote, there should be no government records of party affiliation.

The government doesn't require it, people report it voluntarily so
NO HARM, NO FOUL.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

The government doesn't require it, people report it voluntarily so
NO HARM, NO FOUL.

Not true. If you want to be a member of either the Democrat or Republican party, you have no choice but to register as one, else you can't vote within your party. Nobody asked my permission for the political parties to confuse themselves with government. It is not the government's job to run elections for political parties. If the political parties ran their own elections for candidates and freed themselves from the government voter registration process, they could insist on greater verification for purposes of participating in voting for candidates.

Here in this thread we see a corrupted process made possible by the lax enforcement in the public, constitutionally mandated voter registration process. The corruption was party motivated. The political parties could easily bypass this weakness and prevent non-citizens from participating in that voting process. They could use E-verify, for example. Even if the public registration process was still corrupted, at least the candidates submitted to the public would be free of that influence.

This is a total waste of my time. So I'm out.

See also this thread:

http://www.alipac.us/f19/californias...2012-a-258345/