Parties spar over voter fraud claims

Sito Negron and Kirsten Searer

Friday, Oct. 15, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

An attorney for the Democratic Party was meeting with Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax today to come up with a plan to allow people who think their voter registration form was destroyed to register late.

District Judge Valerie Adair planned to consider the proposal this afternoon.

The Democratic Party asked Adair this morning to allow the late registrations after a former worker of Voters Outreach of America, which collected registrations for the Republican Party, alleged that forms signed by Democrats had been destroyed.

Because of a concern over "opening the floodgates," Adair, Lomax and Paul Larsen, the Democratic Party attorney, talked about allowing a registration opportunity for a few hours on Monday. They discussed making the opportunity available only to those who sign a sworn affidavit that they filled out a form supplied by Voters Outreach of America.

Voter registration closed Tuesday and the allegations came to light the same day in a KLAS-TV Channel 8 report.

Meanwhile, the Republicans called allegations "outright lies" made up by former employees, one of whom had a wage dispute with his employers. One GOP organizer from Arizona said Thursday he planned to sue the employees and the Channel 8 reporter who broke the story.

The situation -- which is escalating even as state and federal officials continue to research what laws would apply to the situation -- has drawn national attention.

It is raising specters of the frenzied fight over Florida ballots in the last presidential election and concerns that Nevada, a so-called battleground state that has seen an influx of out-of-state registration efforts from both parties, is ripe for trouble.

"Anything can happen. It's just sort of crazy. I've never seen such concerted efforts to register people," said Jerry Simich, a UNLV associate professor of political science.

During the hearing this morning, Larsen said to keep would-be voters from abusing the late registration period, the affidavits they would sign would be available for public review, and if people were found have lied, the court could find them in contempt and could have the registration revoked.

Attorney Thomas Kummer, saying he was representing three potential intervenors in Washoe County, said if Lomax allowed late registration in Clark County, it would spark a demand across the state.

"There will be more intervenors flocking our door," he said.

He also told Adair the state Legislature sets voting registration rules, and he doubted the court had the power to reopen registration.

Michael Mushkin, representing an ex-worker, said the situation warrants judicial action. "This was a systemic attempt to (suppress) voters," he said.

Democrats and Republicans dueled through press releases and news conferences Thursday, as another witness came forward to say she knew of an organized effort to suppress Democratic voter registration forms.

The Republican-funded Voters Outreach of America, which is operating in at least one other state where concerns have been raised about its activities, collected signatures in Las Vegas from mid-August to the end of September. The group returned 1,947 Republican registrations and 319 Democratic registrations out of about 4,500 blank forms it had signed out, county officials said Wednesday.

Thursday, as the story heated up and national media began plugging it into their reports, Democratic spokesman Jon Summers said he hoped that Adair this morning would give Lomax the approval to register "people who have been victimized by the company."

The Republican called the charges lies.

Nevada Republican Party Chairwoman Earlene Forsythe said in a statement, later bolstered by national GOP Chairman Ed Gillespie, that the Democrats were the ones systematically attempting to influence the process.

Referring to what purports to be a Democratic Party handbook with instructions for poll watchers to make up voter intimidation charges, Forsythe said it showed how low the "Democratic Party will stoop for an ounce of political gain."

Summers later countered by sending out the full contents of the Democratic manual, which counsels people to pre-empt voter suppression techniques through issuing press releases denouncing the practice and pointing to past suppression incidents. The manual does not mention creating charges, as the Republicans alleged.

"Frankly, the Republican Party has a history of voter intimidation or repression," Summers said, explaining the charges as a desperate attempt to deflect attention from the growing issue of alleged fraud. "To say the Democrats are going to go out and make stuff up is preposterous."

The story wsa reported earlier this week when Eric Russell, a former worker with Voters Outreach of America, first told KLAS Channel 8 reporter George Knapp that Russell caught his supervisors shredding Democratic voter registration forms.

He also claimed that employees were told to seek people who were more likely to register Republican by asking them questions before signing them up, and that employees were not paid unless they brought in a given number of Republican registrants.

Russell went to the Federal Bureau of Investigation but did not file a report, Special Agent David Schrom said. He was to return to the FBI Wednesday but did not, Schrom said. He instead met with Democratic Party lawyers.

FBI officials said he had still not returned as of late Thursday afternoon.

Thursday night Knapp spoke to another former voter registration worker, who said she was employed by Republican-funded Carderock Group and had similar orders.

"Two or three of us asked what do we do if they want to register as a Democrat," Patti Parker said. She said she was told "dispose of it or bring it back here and we will dispose of it."

Nathan Sproul, the Arizona operative and former head of that state's Republican Party, said in a telephone interview from his Phoenix office that Russell and Parker were lying. Sproul operates Sproul and Associates, which is supporting Voters Outreach of America.

"We have a zero tolerance policy of any type of fraud," Sproul said. "There is accountability built into the structure. We had a fraud coordinator who would look at every voter registration form brought in to make sure it was legitimate."

He said Russell was angry because he was fired. He said he didn't know why Parker made the allegations. And he said he planned to sue them and the reporter who broke the story for libel and defamation.

"We have no choice. This was not our first reaction but we are rapidly becoming victims of page 54 of the Democrat's playbook, which is to bring allegations even if they're baseless. I'm not going to sit back and allow that to happen. We're going to fight back," Sproul said.

While he said he didn't want to make a distinction between turning down a person who wanted to register Democratic and tearing up their form, neither of which was acceptable, the group "did use some techniques" to favor Republican registrants, such as asking a person for whom they planned to vote before signing them up.

Sproul also denied workers were paid by the number of Republican registration forms they turned in.

"In Nevada we paid by the hour," he said.

It was still unclear Thursday as to what laws may have been broken if the charges are true.

In Carson City, attorneys continued to examine election laws on Thursday, said Tom Sargent, spokesman for the attorney general.

"We're doing a lot of legal research right now," he said.

Nevada law considers it a gross misdemeanor to "Impede or prevent, by abduction, duress or fraudulent contrivance, the free exercise of the franchise by any voter."

It also prohibits anyone from taking action to discourage an applicant from registering to vote, and from altering or defacing a registration form that has been signed by the voter, according to the Democratic Party lawsuit to be heard this morning.

Federal law makes it a felony for two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten or intimidate any person from exercising constitutional rights.

Nevada American Civil Liberties Union director Gary Peck said his organization was making this issue a priority.

He said he was concerned that after two days, state officials appear unable to determine how the law views the allegations that the registration forms were destroyed.

"There were no consistent rules being consistently enforced. I am not questioning anyone's personal integrity or motivations, I am talking about an institutional problem," Peck said. "I am not sure to what extent that is part of the explanation of what is happening here."

Lomax said that the news has created a deluge of telephone calls from residents wondering if they were registered.

"We did receive about twice as many calls yesterday as we usually do," Lomax said, pegging the number of calls received Wednesday at about 3,400.

He said that when people register to vote, they're better off -- as it warns on top of the form -- bringing it in themselves, so they can be sure the registration was turned in.

Pete Mota called the Sun to ask whether he was registered to vote. He said he called the elections office, but was placed on hold and since he was calling from work, could not stay on the line.

He said he signed up to vote about two months ago, and fears that his form was thrown away. Mota, who would have been a first-time voter, claims he registered Democrat. The county's Web site has no record of him being a registered voter.

"What does this mean? I'm not going to be able to vote now," he said.

Jean Steenburg, who according to the county Web site is registered as a Republican, said she is a life-long Democrat who changed her registration to Republican after a woman collecting registration forms begged her to sign the form.

"As I was coming up to the DMV on Sahara she asked me if I was registered to vote. She said 'All I need you to do is sign up as a Republican and I can put the paperwork in. You can vote for whomever you want.' I did it and she was very grateful," Steenburg said.

She said it happened late in the day on Sept. 29 or 30.

"I haven't voted since 1974. This is the first time in all those years I actually felt good about going in and voting," Steenburg said. "Now I'm receiving Republican stuff in my mail. I'm thinking, 'My God, I'm on a list with people I don't vote with, I'm not in their classroom,' you know what I mean?"

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