the Case of the Freeper FRiva Feva is under scrutiny - super-sleuths are welcomed
come resolve the way to yesterday's Target Post, you're not out of the running yet
win your registration fees to the FRive Las Vegas Conference if you dare
Posted on 06/27/2002 1:14:24 PM PDT by Glutton
SEATTLE (AP) - Someone who needs a math lesson forged voters' names on new voter registration cards to support signatures on initiative petitions, officials said.
On at least two phony cards submitted to the King County elections office, the birth year was given as 1986, which would make the ostensible voters at least two years too young to vote.
``It may be one of those things that will go into a 'World's Dumbest Criminal' book somewhere,'' county elections superintendent Julie Anne Kempf said Wednesday.
At least five registration cards have been found to be fakes in which the names of real voters were forged, and additional cards are being investigated. The affected voters all gave similar descriptions of a signature gatherer who approached them to sign an initiative petition in the city's University District, Kempf said.
A paid signature solicitor is believed to be the culprit and will be prosecuted ``to the fullest extent of the law'' if caught, she said. Voter registration fraud is a felony under state law.
``If we can identify who the individual is, and we're getting closer and closer, then the whole thing is going to be turned over to the Seattle police and the King County prosecutor,'' Kempf said.
In a similar case, a Tacoma man working for an out-of-state signature company in 1997 was sentenced to six months in jail and fined $1,175 after pleading guilty to eight counts of voter registration fraud.
Kempf said she did not know which initiative was involved this time but suggested there could be two motivations - making sure that signatures are valid, and getting extra pay for signing up new voters.
Washington state Secretary of State Sam Reed, a critic of the use of paid signature gatherers, said the episode bolstered his concern.
``When you're basically getting a bounty for getting these signatures, it does cause some people to start fudging a bit, and of course this (current case) is beyond a fudge,'' Reed said.
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