Looks like the Rs in OC, CA have been up to their dirty tricks...AGAIN!
Let's see if the Rs in Congress call for these people to be penalized:
Petitioners conned voters into switching to the GOPBy BRIAN JOSEPH
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Petitioners prowling parking lots and community college campuses tricked dozens of young Orange County voters into registering to vote as Republicans, an Orange County Register investigation has found.
The con occurred at the end of January and the beginning of February at places like Cypress College and Golden West College, and outside of discount stores like Wal-Mart and Food 4 Less. It appears to be the same kind of voter registration fraud that engulfed Orange County four years ago and landed eight signature gatherers in jail.
Since mid-March, state elections officials have received written complaints from at least 99 people who say they were registered to vote as a Republican without their consent. The Register found an additional 74 voters who said they were duped or coerced into registering to vote as a Republican by signature gatherers who initially asked them to sign petitions for causes like legalizing marijuana, fighting cancer or cleaning up beaches.
In all, the Register called 348 registered Republicans in central Orange County and reached 90 of them. Of those, only 16 said they wanted to be Republicans. The rest told stories of fast-talking petitioners, some advertising free sunglasses if they signed.
All of the voters identified by the Register are listed as under 28 years old; many said they knew little about politics or voting. A few, when told they were listed on the county voter rolls as a Republican, asked, "What is a Republican?"
The voters are all residents of the 34th State Senate District in central Orange County, where the Republican Party has high hopes of ousting incumbent Democrat Lou Correa in the fall. The California Republican Party has a controversial policy of paying signature gatherers who sends them new GOP voter registration cards and the Republicans are offering as much as $8 for each new GOP registration in that district.
Many believe the $8 "bounty" gives petitioners an incentive to commit fraud.
In 2006, The Register found a similar fraud pattern in Orange County that was blamed, in part, on the bounty paid to signature gatherers. That year 167 voters complained to election officials that they were switched to Republican registration without their permission; The Register found another 112 voters who said they were tricked. Eleven signature gatherers were eventually convicted of falsifying registrations and other charges; eight went to jail.
The Republican Party isn't likely to benefit from this scheme because many of the voters contacted by the Register said they don't vote Republican. The only beneficiaries appear to be the signature gatherers themselves.
"I'm already anti-Republican and now they have people scamming people just to get money and just to get more voters?" said 25-year-old Bobbi Lee Smart, who says she was tricked into registering to vote as a Republican by a signature gatherer at Cypress College. "You guys suck."
Four signature gatherers reached by The Register denied any wrongdoing. But a spokesman for the California Republican Party said it is taking the Register's findings seriously and has launched an extensive, internal review to see what happened.
"The CRP has its most robust voter registration verification program in its history going on right now," said Mark Standriff, communications director for the California Republican Party. "We are committed to accountability and transparency throughout the process... Even one (bad registration) is not acceptable."
Who are the signature gatherers? Using the affidavit numbers on each voter registration card, the Register traced the fraudulent registrations to at least 17 different petitioners, many of whom were employed by vendors with ties to the California Republican Party.
Nine of those signature gatherers – Patrick Smith of Irvine, Andrew Ernst of Orange, Riley Youngdahl of San Clemente, Eduardo Roman of Aliso Viejo, Daniel Anthony of Rosemead, Louise Breneiser of Glendora, Ryan Kevane of Anaheim Hills, Eric Houskeeper of Laguna Beach and Helene Stanton – signed for 53 of the fraudulent registration cards identified by the Register, certifying they were present when the voters filled them out.
http://www.ocregister.com/news/-244428--.html
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