Voter registrations under review

The Record ^ | April 11, 2004 | David Siders

[w1andsodidwe]

16 cards sent to state investigators

A dead Republican was registered as a Democrat in a San Joaquin County voter-fraud case, one of hundreds of voter registrations being reviewed by the county's registrar of voters.

Helen Seymour had been dead six months when she was registered in March, county records show.

The ongoing review could result in criminal charges against Deborah DuBrutz and Bonnie Fetters, both of Stockton, registrar Deborah Hench said.

County elections officials have mailed state investigators 16 registration cards that the two women submitted, Hench said. Some cards registered Republican voters as Democrats. Some contained altered birth dates and names.

DuBrutz and Fetters gathered registrations outside grocery and department stores while working for the Statewide Voter Registration Project, a nonprofit corporation that registers Democrats in California.

All registrations that the Voter Registration Project submitted are being reviewed, including registrations from workers other than DuBrutz and Fetters, Hench said Saturday.

Both DuBrutz and Fetters confirmed collecting and submitting the registration cards that the county has forwarded to state investigators but said they did not fabricate information on them.

"I'm not going to turn criminal for $8 an hour," DuBrutz said.

Cigarettes and dollar bills perhaps tempted passers-by to give false names, the women said.

Fetters said she traded dollar bills and half and whole packages of Doral menthol cigarettes for voter registrations from passers-by. DuBrutz, the woman who registered Seymour, said she traded GPC 100 cigarettes, sodas and bandannas for registrations.

Both Fetters, 47, and DuBrutz, 33, said they also bought registration cards colleagues had completed in order to expand their own registration rolls. :::

Fetters said two of the registration cards mailed to state investigators are ones she bought from a colleague.

Such actions are illegal, Hench said.

But Fetters and DuBrutz said their mistakes do not constitute election fraud.

"I'm not proud of myself," Fetters said. "I didn't like having to buy votes (registrations)."

Explaining their actions, both women said Voter Registration Project managers required more signatures than could be collected without sometimes trading goods for registrations.

The Voter Registration Project, which pays registration workers $8 per hour, does not have registration quotas for its employees, statewide director Jerry Wooledge said.

It does, however, expect them to work, he said.

State investigators could forward a case against Fetters and DuBrutz to the San Joaquin County district attorney, Hench said.

DuBrutz and Fetters, incidentally, were clerks at county polling places during the March 2 election. The women were not regular employees at the office of the registrar of voters and will not work at polling places again, Hench said.

Fraudulent registrations did not affect the election, she said.

Fraudulent registrations, however, have affected Hench.

"I just want to cry," she said.

County elections officials opened the fraud investigation after an employee discovered incorrect cards registering a Linden couple known to the employee, Hench said.

"There are so many others (registration cards) we are still trying to determine if they are genuine or not," she said in a letter to the state Elections Fraud Investigations Unit.

The Voter Registration Project in March fired Fetters, a certified public accountant.

DuBrutz now registers voters for Vance Petition Circulators of Stockton. She said she checks identification cards before registering voters.

"I'm a good girl," she said.

Tom Gray of Vance Petition Circulators said DuBrutz has been a good worker. She was honest about her past, he said.

"She made no bones about it when she came in," he said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* To reach reporter David Siders, phone (209) 943-8580 or e-mail dsiders@recordnet.com

[w1andsodidwe]

Fetters said she traded dollar bills and half and whole packages of Doral menthol cigarettes for voter registrations from passers-by. DuBrutz, the woman who registered Seymour, said she traded GPC 100 cigarettes, sodas and bandannas for registrations.

Democrats giving bribes for voter registration fraud is business as usual I guess.

[AnAmericanMother]

Tell it to the judge, ladies.

[international american]

There must be some way to stop this!!

The dims are bribing people to vote and accepting phony registrations!!

[shield]

This is great. So glad repubs are this far a head of the election. Hope this is going on throughout the states of the USA. ;o)

[GoLightly]

If fraud wasn't intended, where did they get the names to submit? It wasn't about getting bribed by cigarettes or anything. Someone had to know the "new voters" weren't gonna show up to vote "twice".

Lax identification rules *ask* for voter fraud. Back in the days when everyone knew their neighbors, lax identification rules made sense. They no longer do. Fix the dang system & make good identification part of the registration process.

[Dog Gone]

"I'm not going to turn criminal for $8 an hour," DuBrutz said.

No, simple hatred of conservatives is adequate motivation.

[international american]

"Fraudulent registrations, however, have affected Hench.

"I just want to cry," she said. "

Cry in JAIL you criminal wretch!!

[jmstein7]

BUMP!

[w1andsodidwe]

Hench is not the criminal, she is the Registrar of Voters who found the problem.

[Diogenesis]

In Massachusetts, Florida, Illinois, etc. THIS IS STANDARD DEMOCRATIC POLICY.

Some say that the Massachusetts SJC under Marshall-Lewis is secretly working a large enough group
to declare votes by the dead to be legally valid IF they are cast for a Democrat candidate (alive or dead).

[jmstein7]

Yup, there is a way to stop it. I have spelled it out here:

http://www.streamload.com/jmstein77/Final Draft 1.doc

[jmstein7]

Yup, there is a way to stop it. I have spelled it out here:

http://www.streamload.com/jmstein77/Final Draft 1.doc

[w1andsodidwe]

Some say that the Massachusetts SJC under Marshall-Lewis is secretly working a large enough group to declare votes by the dead to be legally valid IF they are cast for a Democrat candidate (alive or dead).

Sort of like the democrat state senator here in California who wants to give 14 year olds 1/2 a vote, just so they can learn to vote. I am sure he wants them to vote demonRAT.

[EggsAckley]

"I'm a good girl," she said.

What is she, about twelve years old?

[international american]

"However, the NVRA, or “Motor Voter,” requires the attachment of standardized, mail-in voter registration forms to applications issued by states’ motor vehicles departments (which have different names, depending on the state). In New York, the NVRA voter registration forms are attached to both driver’s license applications (limited to citizens) and non-driver identification forms (available to anyone, including non-citizens). Thus, it is plausible that a non-citizen who applies for a non-driver identification card will not realize that he or she needs to fill out a special form, and will fill out, instead, an NVRA registration form – and it is unlikely, due to the passive New York qualification scheme, that the state will catch the error. Thus, the entire City scheme is undermined by the NVRA. The problem would, logically, be exacerbated in states that allow non-citizens to apply for driver’s licenses, as every non-citizen who applies will receive an NVRA registration form. Wittingly or unwittingly, non-citizens who register, and then vote, wittingly or unwittingly in federal elections, will impermissibly dilute the legal votes of United States citizens. A dual roll system, and the repeal of the NVRA, would completely avoid this serious potential problem.
Critics of the NVRA claim that it is merely an expensive partisan sham that facilitates voter fraud. The evidence tends to support this criticism. Although the stated purpose of the NVRA was to increase participation, and although the NVRA has increased registration, the NVRA has failed to significantly impact actual participation in any meaningful way. Thus, the NVRA is an expensive failure that significantly facilitates voter fraud, an egregious violation of citizens’ federal voting rights. If this failed legislation is repealed, it would give states the financial latitude necessary to implement a federally mandated, dual roll voter registration system – a compassionate system for protecting the federal voting rights of United States citizens and giving states a head start on building the electoral infrastructure to allow non-citizens necessary, limited political participation.

[international american]

What are the odds we can ever get the govt. to enact this proposal?

[international american]

I hit the wrong quote and the wrong name:) Pardon my senile dementia!

[eno_]

Multiply by about 2 MILLION and you are near to approaching the real scale of vote fraud.

[international american]

Here in California it must be rampant.

[AnAmericanMother]

I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Georgia was the birthplace of voter fraud on a massive scale under the leadership of 'Gene Talmadge.

Old joke: a very dark night in a cemetery, a couple of guys with flashlights and clipboards are out copying the names off of gravestones. One is very worn and almost illegible, the guy tries and tries to copy it and finally turns away in disgust. "Hang on," says the other, "You go back and copy that down. He has just as much right to vote for 'Gene Tammage as anybody else in this graveyard."