Feds’ help sought in voter fraud allegations

Sito Negron

Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004 | 11:09 a.m.

The Nevada advisory committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is asking the U.S. Justice Department to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the state, while the FBI says it is still reviewing the case.

The case revolves around an allegation made by Eric Russell, a former employee of the Republican-funded Voters Outreach of America, David Sanchez, the advisory committee's chairman, said this morning. Russell alleges that he caught supervisors tearing up Democratic voter registration forms.

Sanchez announced today that he was asking the commission's Washington office to contact the U.S. Department of Justice about Russell's claims.

"If these allegations of voter disenfranchisement are true, then the Nevada State Advisory Committee believes there are serious violation of federal laws concerning voting rights," Sanchez wrote in a letter to Mary Frances Berry, chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Washington.

The letter was dated Wednesday.

Nathan Sproul, an Arizona resident who leads Voters Outreach, filed a slander lawsuit against Russell for making the allegations. However, that lawsuit was filed in Arizona, which may not have jurisdiction over the case, and Russell's attorneys have not been served with the lawsuit.

Sanchez, leader of the nine-person state advisory committee, said today he will contact the local FBI and county election registrar to inform them of his concerns.

The commission is an independent, bipartisan fact-finding agency of the federal executive branch. Its duties include investigating civil rights violations such as voter fraud. Sanchez said federal agencies such as the Justice Department are required by statute to cooperate with the commission.

His letter to Berry asks the commission to contact the voting rights section of the justice department to "encourage a Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the actions of Voters Outreach of America and to ensure that the alleged disenfranchisement can be corrected."

Meanwhile, also this morning, District Judge Sally Loehrer postponed a decision on whether to allow Dwight Brandon, 44, to register to vote after she first chided his attorney Norman Kirshman for failing to properly schedule his case.

Loehrer was to hear the lawsuit claiming that Brandon registered with Republican activists but never was added to the voter rolls. Brandon wants a judge to force the elections department to put him on the voter rolls and let him vote.

"I'm just telling you if you want it heard, you didn't do it properly," Loehrer told Kirshman before allowing the hearing to go on, but postponing it until 2 p.m. today to give Kirshman a chance to bring to the court affidavits supporting Brandon's contention that he had registered to vote.

Brandon had claimed that he registered with a woman wearing a Republican T-shirt, but that the registration form was never turned in to the Clark County registrar of voters.

He said his parents and a friend were with him at the time he registered. However the only proof he presented to the court today was his affidavit attesting to his version of the events. Loehrer said he needed more than that.

"I would think the way to support your position ... the way one would prove they in fact registered would be by witnesses, " Loehrer said. "Now who would be better witnesses than parents?"

Two potential interveners, one of whom is a Republican activist, are trying to gain status with the court to challenge Brandon's lawsuit. They claim that allowing Brandon to register after the deadline has passed would dilute the power of their votes.

Republicans are charging that the allegations of voter fraud are part of a Democratic tactic to lay the groundwork for challenging election results. Similar issues with voter registration rolls are alleged in Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and other swing states.

Russell has been interviewed by the FBI, as has his girlfriend, who made similar allegations. Sproul said Russell is a disgruntled employee who is making up the story.

FBI spokesman Special Agent Todd Palmer said the FBI is continuing to look at the case.

Sources say the Justice Department is looking at similar allegations of voter fraud in other states.

Sanchez said an Oct. 15 conference call with Civil Rights Commission committees in Oregon and Arizona, along with the reports about Voters Outreach, spurred his group's request.

"This began to gel together and we decided we would do our business and formally request the investigation," Sanchez said. When asked why it took so long to make the request, he said, "We could have done this earlier but we had to observe our procedures before we could go public."

The stories about voter fraud have been a constant media topic for weeks, particularly in Nevada.

The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday reported on the national issues, leaning heavily on the Nevada claims.

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax told that paper that "Government officials are certainly under the gun. Nobody wants to be the next Florida. If you are in a swing state like we are and there is a close vote, there will be litigation."

Lomax told the Sun on Wednesday that he wanted to see proof of Brandon's allegations.

"As far as I'm concerned in all these cases if someone intentionally did not submit their form they ought to be allowed to register but there has to be some proof of that," Lomax said. "I don't know what happened so in that sense I'm neutral.

"But you're opening a Pandora's box if you allow them to go on the rolls and there's no proof other than someone's word. Anyone can walk in here and claim they registered with somebody."

Brandon claimed he registered with someone wearing a Republican shirt. His parents, who registered at the same time, showed up on the voter rolls, he said, while he did not.

However, he said he did not have a receipt for the form.

Lomax said people who think they are registered but are not on the rolls can vote provisionally, a procedure allowed only in federal elections and used for the first time this year. Also, people who did not bring identification can vote, as long as they show their ID to voting officials before 5 p.m. the Friday after voting.

He said those votes will be reviewed after the election, and only people whose names are found on voter rolls will be counted.

"If we can't determine they're registered they won't count," Lomax said.

He said 154 people voted provisionally as of Wednesday morning, and all of those had identification.

"We've never done provisional, but the number of people showing up to vote or thinking they're registered and finding out they're not does not seem out of the ordinary to me based on the fact that by the end of day we'll have had more than 200,000 voters," Lomax said.

By comparison, 167,000 people voted in the early voting period in the 2000 presidential election. Lomax said by the close of early voting Friday "we'll do over a quarter-million (votes cast)."

Sun reporters

Jace Radke and Timothy Pratt contributed to this story.