Two in Calif. sentenced for voter fraud

[TechBear_Seattle]

Posted in full (it's short) from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070104/ap_on_re_us/registration_fraud

SANTA ANA, Calif. - Two signature gatherers charged with tricking Orange County voters into registering as Republicans were sentenced to three years' probation.

Jason Holly, 36, and Jessica Sundell, 23, were among a dozen people arrested last fall and charged with fraudulent completion of affidavit of registration, a felony.

According to prosecutors, the recruiters went to shopping malls and campuses and asked residents to sign petitions for lower taxes or stricter sex offender laws, then tricked them into signing voter registration cards for the Republican party. The registration drive paid up to $10 per registrant.

Orange County Republican Party Chairman Scott Baugh said in October that the party did not know about the illegal signature gathering.

Holly and Sundell were sentenced Wednesday and told they couldn't recruit voters or collect signatures for petitions, said Senior Deputy District Attorney Dan Hess. He said the pair, who pleaded guilty in November, will get credit for time served: 24 days for Holly and 30 days for Sundell.

One of the other defendants remains a fugitive.

[babylonsister]

1. They should be thrown in jail to set an example. nt

[Hieronymus]

15. Yes, jail them.

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. If each individual offense is a felony count....

Then they could be in jail for a LONG time.

[rman]

3. the voters did nothing wrong, so it's not "voter fraud" - it is "election fraud"

[hughee99]

4. I don't see how it is "election fraud" either...

as their activities had no impact on actual elections, as far as I know. Being registered as a repuke in no way obligates anyone to vote for anything later on, and given that these people were not even aware they were registering as repukes, they certainly wouldn't feel personally obligated to do anything. It seems like the only people who were actually defrauded here was the repuke party who hired these people to get repukes to register to vote, and I don't feel bad for them at all. :nopity:

[LeftyMom]

5. It keeps people from being able to vote in the correct primary, for one thing. nt

[hughee99]

6. California has had open primaries since '98, IIRC. n/t

[LeftyMom]

7. Nope.

The courts said parties have the right to restrict membership and primary voting under the constitutional right to free association.

[hughee99]

8. Has this been repealed?

On Edit: I see that it has after a little googling. I left CA in '99 when they still had the open primaries. You are correct.

[LeftyMom]

9. It was ruled unconstitutional, by the state supreme court, iirc.

I've worked elections here and people only get primary ballots for their registered party. Parties could permit open primaries for their party if they choose, but no major parties do and I don't think any of the minor parties do either.

[hughee99]

10. You are correct, I just looked into it further

The Democrats, Repukes, and the "American Independent Party" have all closed their primaries to anyone except members and those unaffiliated with any party. I just finished editing my last post when I saw your post. I thought I'd correct myself, but you beat me to it.

[LeftyMom]

11. No problem.

It's hard keeping track of which initiatives pass and then which actually make it past the courts here.

[TechBear_Seattle]

17. And because of that damned ruling...

Washington's blanket primary also ended up overturned, even though the basis of the California decision had no bearing on Washington.

The difference is that California has partisan voter registration: you are a registered Democrat or a registered Libertarian or a registered Green. It was argued that this partisan registration creates an expectation of cameraderie and thus a right to associate with other registered, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, etc. This right to associate is violated by a blanket primary.

Washington registration is non-partisan: we have registered voters, not party members. It was argued -- unsuccessfully -- that there is no expectation of cameraderie, thus no right of association, thus no violation of this right. Sadly, neither the Ninth Circuit nor the US Supreme Court noticed this fundamental difference.

[goclark]

12. A R N O L D's Elves nt

[SoCalDem]

13. Um.. what am I missing here??

The people who PAID $10 per republican sign up are the ones who should be going to jail.

Anyone willing to PAY $10 per voter, HAS to know that there would be shenanigans aplenty.

Republican operatives wouldf never want to pay $10 for a democratic registrant, so where did THOSE applications go?

and if they were ONLY paying for republican sign-ups, you KNOW they people doing the canvassing would do whatever it took to maximize their earnings.

This is all too cute by half. .. and once again two underlings end up taking the heat, while the fat cats with the money sit back and laugh their asses off

[cui bono]

14. Absolutely. Where is the justice?

Also, do voting rights get taken away for all felonies? Seems to me that anyone who tries to rig the voting should no longer be allowed to participate in it (that is a purely emotional thought that just popped into my head that I haven't thought through so forgive me if it's extreme). And I mean the people you're talking about, not necessarily the pawns collecting the registrations. They just needed to make a buck most likely.

It really shouldn't be legal to pay for that or for signature collecting (which I actually did once way back in my youth and it turned out the guy who hired me was a crack addict!).

[VegasWolf]

16. Probation!! Fucking assholes. nt

[MetaTrope]

18. That reminds me, is Ann Coulter in prison yet?

[annm4peace]

19. This was also done in fresno, ca

Mike Rhodes with the Community Alliance magazine had a story and pictures on this. The booth said it was for legalizing Marijiana.. and then will they registered voters they checked the Republican box after the person filled otu the form.

I wonder if it was ever investigated. A lot of illegal things seem to happen in the Central valley the Attorney General looks the other way.