Car contest may violate election law

Kirsten Searer

Friday, Oct. 22, 2004 | 11:15 a.m.

A group trying to get out the vote with a contest offering a 2005 Ford Mustang could be violating election law, the Nevada Secretary of State's office said.

The group, a coalition of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation, is running the contest in nine battleground states including Nevada. People are entered in the contest by voting and getting five other people to the polls.

"It's going full force to turn out a bunch of folks," said Sandra Perez, western regional coordinator of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project. "Maybe something like this will be the trigger to make them regular voters."

But Steve George, spokesman for the Nevada Secretary of State's office, said the contest likely violates federal law that prohibits people from intimidating or bribing voters into casting a ballot.

That includes providing incentives to voters, George said.

"It's against federal law and state law to provide any reward or inducement for people to vote," he said.

It doesn't matter that the group tells contestants and their friends to vote for whomever they want to, George said.

"Even good-natured things like that are illegal," he said.

In 2002, for example, Station Casinos offered a free buffet meal to anyone who came in with a receipt or voter registration card proving they had voted.

As thousands of people lined up for a free meal, the Secretary of State's office sent Station Casinos a warning to stop serving the meals, but the company continued, pointing out that other companies, such as Krispy Kreme, donated doughnuts to polls around the valley.

Secretary of State officials said there was a big difference between a doughnut and a meal.

In the 2000 elections, a Carson City clothing store also was told to stop giving discounts to people with voting receipts.

George said there was no disciplinary action taken against Station Casinos in the last election. He said these offers are made with good intentions to get people to the polls and the individuals or companies don't realize there is a law against it.

The contest's Web site, http://take5anddrive.org, specifies that contestants should not tell their friends how to vote.

"This contest is nonpartisan and is not intended to help any specific candidate or issue," the Web site states. "The purpose of this contest is to empower communities simply by getting more people to stand up and be counted through the act of voting.

"People should vote for whomever they believe will best represent them."

Perez said a team of attorneys working for her national group has approved the contest. The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation also is sponsoring the contest.

"It's kind of a contest just to get people to empower their community, but we're not telling anybody to vote," she said.

The contest may skirt election laws because it does not directly offer a bribe to someone to vote -- it offers an incentive to people to encourage other people to vote.

"There is a strong argument this is permissible," said Ohio State University law professor Daniel Tokaji, who specializes in voting rights and other areas.

Tokaji said convincing someone to go vote is not the same as buying or selling votes. He said this is not paying people to show up and cast a vote for a specific candidate.

"Here you are not paying the voter, but for people who encourage others to vote," Tokaji said. "I don't see any real risk of bribery there."

The contest may be questionable because it could raise questions about whether entrants induced friends to vote in a certain way, said Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services Inc., which specializes in election administration. That would be difficult to prove one way or the other, he said.

"It's a gray area," he said.

A Justice Department spokesman was not immediately available to comment on whether the contest is legal under federal law.

Renee Parker, chief deputy secretary of state, said there is a law that that makes it illegal to "induce" people to vote and this contest could come under that.

She said she would have to study it further but "at first blush" it appears this contest is covered by that law.

Southwest Voter Registration Education Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that has registered voters in Latino communities since 1974, according to its Web site.

The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation also is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that has 86 member organizations dedicated to getting blacks to the polls, according to the Web site.

Other states where people can win cars are Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. The group will offer two cars in New Mexico -- one specifically will be set aside for the Native American population, Perez said. According to the group's Web site, two cars will also be available in Louisiana.

The cars are each worth $20,000, according to the manufacturer's suggested retail price.

The contest was unveiled last week but the Web site already has had more than 20,000 hits, she said. Representatives will get the word out in Nevada by going door-to-door and talking to a variety of groups from Hispanic associations to PTAs, Perez said.

The groups want the contestants' friends to be newly registered voters, Perez said, but contest rules on the Web site do not specify that people must be voting for the first time.

In the end, the coalition hopes to get 3,000 people who don't normally vote out to the polls in Nevada, Perez said.

Entries must be postmarked by Nov. 8. Winners will be selected in a random drawing set to be held on Dec. 15.