from your second link:
I used to live in this district when this happened in 1996. My father witnessed someone walk up to the ballot box and drop a pile of ballots two feet high into the ballot boxes and the poll workers did NOTHING. I remember going to bed that night, happy, that Dornan has survived by what I remember to be about 2,000 votes. The networks and the local papers wouldn’t call the race because there about 5,000 (I believe) mail in ballots outstanding. I thought to myself Loretta Sanchez would have to get over 70% of the mail in ballots to barely win. Well two weeks later, what do you know she started leading by over a 1,000 votes. That means she got over 80% of the mail in ballots. Santa Ana and Garden Grove were hardly “urban” districts so getting 80% was next to impossible. There investigations and there were 800 plus ballots determined to be fraudulent but not enough to overturn the election. If I remember, Pete McClosky a Democrat, in Indiana, had a similar situation happen to him but unlike the feckless Republicans the Democrats in Congress disqualified the election (which is in their power). Gingrich, Armey and DeLay didn’t extend a finger to help Dornan because they didn’t like him.
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Dornan own hubris defeated him. He did not even campaigning in his district during his last election.
He had his permanent residence in DC, not in his 46th district. Sure, he had a run-down house in Garden Grove, but never visited.
He spent a mere $23,000 on his last campaign. He said of his opponent, Loretta Sanchez:
“She can’t beat me. Bob Dornan is a father of five, grandfather of 10, military man, been married 41 years. She has no kids, no military, no track record. I win.”
Speaking of Loretta Sanchez, she became known as Boom-Boom here on FR during the 2000 Presidential Race when she scheduled a Hispanic fund-raiser for Al Gore at the Playboy Mansion.
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In 1996, instead of working to secure his seat, he spent a considerable amount of effort and resources in a quixotic campaign for president. Then in 1998, he ran a rather weird campaign to regain his seat by using images of the Virgen of Guadalupe in an effort to appeal to Mexican-American voters.
I was new to working at a polling place in the late 70’s in Costa Mesa. What a terrible experience! Arrived early at the designated address - someone’s garage and there wasn’t any preparation - no tables, no chairs. In the days of no cell phones to call the county to get direction on “what do we do now” and the owner of the house not home to let us use their phone. I think neighbors who came to vote went back to get tables and chairs when they saw our plight. We managed to get going and managed to close at the proper time. My husband and I took the ballot boxes to Santa Ana late at night to drop off and that had never been discussed beforehand. I was the last one there so guess it fell to me and my husband came to the rescue.
I remember early in the day as voters arrived, an older woman also working there told me I had to keep track of the NUMBER of the paper ballot on the sign in sheet so they could match everything later on if needed. I told her that certainly wasn’t any part of our training and I wasn’t going to do it. Wanted to call her a crazy old bat but held back. I was in my mid ‘30’s at the time so I was pretty gutsy but with common sense.
I think as old as she was even then she went on to give advice on voting in 2020 somewhere in the country!!