Some missing voter registration forms found(Fransiscan University-many more reported missing)

STEUBENVILLE
-EMPTY ENVELOPE — Brian D’Amico, vice president of the College Republicans at Franciscan University of Steubenville, holds the torn and empty envelope that was received Friday at the Jefferson County Board of Elections. D’Amico said he had mailed the envelope containing 115-130 voter registration forms a week ago but it was stamped at the Youngstown postal center as “received unsealed.”

Some voter registration forms originally thought to be missing were delivered today to the Jefferson County Board of Elections.

Diane Gribble, director of the board of elections, said 56 voter registration cards were delivered today from the Pittsburgh post office.

According to Victor Dubina of the U.S. Postal Service Cleveland office, postal inspectors now are back tracking the mail, "to determine what happened to the original mail and how it ended up in the Pittsburgh post office."

College Republicans at Franciscan University of Steubenville are conducting a voter registration drive this week on campus. But this time leaders of the group say they will hand deliver the completed forms to the Jefferson County Board of Elections.

Brian D'Amico, vice president of the College Republicans, said today "it was upsetting and sad" to learn Friday an envelope containing 115-130 completed voter registration forms mailed to the local board of elections arrived cut, torn open and empty.

D'Amico said he was contacted Friday by officials at the board of elections who reported the envelope arrived from the regional postal center in Youngstown stamped "received unsealed."

D'Amico, a senior at Franciscan and a native of Allentown, Pa., said the College Republicans had held a non-partisan voter registration drive on the university campus Sept. 1-15.

"After we found out what happened, we immediately contacted the McCain campaign to make them aware of what happened as well as university officials. David Schmiesing, vice president of student life, sent out an e-mail to all students advising them of the incident and informing everyone of our three-day voter registration drive that started today and will continue through Wednesday. So we may actually see more students registering to vote this week," D'Amico explained.

"But what is really sad is this was a nonpartisan voter registration campaign. We don't ask students who they are voting for and you don't mark a party affiliation on the form. So someone may have tried to stop Democrats and Republicans from voting in November," said D'Amico.

He noted the completed forms were placed in a 9-by-12-inch sealed envelope and mailed through the university mailroom.

According to university spokesperson Tom Sofio, "mail sent through the university mailroom is always taken to the Steubenville post office where it is then sent to Youngstown for sorting. The envelope was opened at some point after it was dropped off at the university mailroom and Youngstown. This incident could have occurred at any point during the mail routing process.

"We are also concerned because the completed voter registration forms contain partial Social Security numbers as well as information from the person's driver's license," noted Sofio.

"This is considered a very serious offense. We have no idea who tampered with the envelope but it is very sad that this sort of thing has happened," added Sofio.

"The post office has informed us an investigation is now underway into mail tampering and tampering with voter registration forms," said D'Amico.

"We don't know where the alleged incident took place. All we know is we received an empty enveloped that was marked, 'voter registration forms' and stamped by the post office as 'received unsealed.' We immediately contacted the Steubenville post office, who referred us to the Youngstown postal center," explained Gribble.

"If someone took out the voter registration forms, that is sad. But what is even more serious is the personal information contained on those forms," Gribble said.

"Something like this shows the importance of voting and we should take our right to vote even more seriously," said D'Amico.

He noted a nonpartisan voter registration table will be set up in Eagan Hall on the university campus from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. today, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Gribble said she would urge anyone collecting a large number of voter registration cards to deliver the forms directly to the board of elections.

"This time we will hand deliver the completed forms to the board of elections. They were very good about calling us when they received the empty envelope so we will take the forms directly to their office," said D'Amico.

UPDATE:

Investigation into mixup continues By DAVE GOSSETT, Staff writer POSTED: September 30, 2008

STEUBENVILLE - The president of the College Republicans at Franciscan University of Steubenville said a strong response Monday from students interested in voting in November can be attributed in part to the mystery of missing voter registration forms.

Mary Novick, a senior at the university, said the majority of the missing voter registration forms were located at the Allegheny County Board of Elections and have been forwarded to the Jefferson County Board of Elections.

According to Diane Gribble, director of the Jefferson County Board of Elections, "we received 56 of the missing voter registration forms on Monday from the Allegheny County Board of Elections. They called us later to say they had received an additional 55 forms and were forwarding them to us. We have no idea how these missing registration forms ended up in Allegheny County but thank goodness they took immediate action to send the forms to us."

Novick said 153 non-partisan forms, "were filled out Monday and those forms were hand delivered to the local board of elections office. We plan to continue to staff a table at Eagan Hall today and Wednesday and may even extend the chance to register to vote until Friday. We are seeing a good response."

Novick said the College Republicans "are pretty satisfied that most of the missing voter registration forms mailed more than a week ago have now been located and accounted for. We are not really pursuing an investigation at this point."

The College Republicans learned of the missing registration forms Thursday when officials from the Jefferson County Board of Elections notified the group an empty envelope had arrived stamped "received unsealed."

Victor Dubina of the U.S. Postal Service Cleveland office said the envelope was never properly sealed and was closed with scotch tape at the Youngstown postal center before it was forwarded to the Steubenville post office for delivery.

But Lyndsey James, a member of the College Republicans, said she properly sealed the 9-by-12-inch envelope before taking it to the university mailroom, where she purchased enough postage stamps and mailed it.

A university spokesman said mail at the mailroom is routinely taken to the Steubenville post office and then it is shipped to the Youngstown postal center for sorting.

Dubina said today the investigation by postal authorities is continuing.

"The local post master is still waiting for the young man who has the envelope used to mail the forms to bring the envelope to her office so we can properly examine it. We work very hard to make sure mail is properly delivered, and when something like this happens, we want to know what went wrong," explained Dubina.

"We are still walking back through the process and our investigation is continuing," added Dubina.

"After we found out what happened, we immediately contacted the (John) McCain campaign to make them aware of what happened as well as university officials," said Brian D'Amico, vice president of the College Republicans. "And David Schmiesing, vice president of Student Life, sent out an e-mail to all students advising them of the incident and informing everyone of our three-day voter registration drive that started today and will continue through Wednesday. So we may actually see more students registering to vote this week."

D'Amico said the original envelope contained between 120 and 130 completed voter registration forms.

"If this was done deliberately by someone, the person involved will probably be facing prosecution for tampering with the election process and with the mail," commented Gribble.

(Gossett can be contacted at dgossett@heraldstaronline.com.)

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