Saturday, October 16, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

VOTER FRAUD ALLEGATIONS: Judge denies request

Democratic Party loses bid to reopen voter registration

District Judge Valerie Adair, above, issues her voter registration ruling Friday. Photo by ISAAC BREKKEN/REVIEW-JOURNAL The disclaimer that the judge referenced. Attorney Paul Larsen, representing the Democratic Party, urges District Judge Valerie Adair on Friday to order election officials to reopen voter registration. Photo by JANE KALINOWSKY/REVIEW-JOURNAL

District Judge Valerie Adair on Friday denied the Democratic Party's request to reopen voter registration to voters whose forms might have been destroyed by a Republican-backed organiza- tion.

In denying the Democratic Party's petition, Adair said extending registration could "open the floodgates" to allow people not affected by the purported fraud to register. Such a move would be inviting "additional fraud and manipulation," she said.

"This court does not believe that there is any way to ensure that only those individuals legitimately affected will register if the time period is extended," the judge said. "There is no guarantee that hundreds of people will not seek to register or claim that they have been impacted."

The appropriate remedy under Nevada law is for those who believe they've been wrongfully denied the right to vote to file individual lawsuits against the Clark County registrar asking to be included on the voter rolls, Adair said.

"The interests of the affected individuals do not justify overriding the statutes enacted by our Legislature and embarking upon a highly dangerous path where the claims of a single individual can impact the voter registration practice of an entire county," Adair said.

The judge pointed to a disclaimer on registration forms that says if voters do not return registration forms themselves or personally mail them to the elections office, they risk not being registered.

Clark County Deputy District Attorney Mary-Anne Miller said elections staff could not process some 58,000 absentee ballots, oversee early voting, and handle a court order to register hundreds of new voters. She said the county could not guarantee voters' information would be in order by the Nov. 2 general election.

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said he was satisfied with Friday's ruling.

"What we wanted was a quick decision, and that's what we got," Lomax said.

Voter registration fraud has plagued Clark County since spring, but Lomax said early in the process it was money-driven. Some voter registration outfits were paying canvassers $3 per form submitted, not by the hour.

But former Voter's Outreach of America employee Eric Russell told KLAS-TV, Channel 8 a different story earlier this week. Russell said the Republican-backed organization paid only for Republican forms and tore up any Democratic registration forms.

"I have proof. I have a witness. It happened," said Russell, who was disappointed in Adair's ruling.

Two other former employees, Tyrone Mrasak and Ashlee Tims, have told similar stories about their experiences working for Voter's Outreach.

Chris Carr, executive director of the state Republican Party, said organizations tied to the Democrats are not innocent of political tricks against the GOP. On Friday, he presented three registration forms submitted by Moving America Forward that listed addresses that do not exist or are empty lots. Moving America Forward is a Democratic group linked to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

"The Democrats have used selective outrage," Carr said. "This is nothing more than a thinly veiled, politically motivated effort to draw media attention away from the real issues just days prior to early voting."

Carr called a recent Channel 8 report that two Republican Party registration supervisors instructed a female employee to destroy Democratic forms "outrageous."

The woman who launched the allegations, Patricia Parker, was a Democrat who eventually switched parties, Carr said. The employees Parker accused of destroying Democratic forms work at party headquarters and are experienced and professional, he said. Parker could not be reached for comment.

Republicans outraged by the accusations said some party workers believe Democratic operatives are volunteering in their office under the guise of being Republicans and then using their employee status to add credibility to their unfounded claims.

When asked if he suspected the same, Carr responded: "Absolutely. That's going to cross your mind."

The controversy surrounding the validity of the Democrats' recent claims have reached Washington D.C., where representatives of both parties are accusing each other of trying to steal the heated presidential election.

During a rally Friday morning at the West Las Vegas Library, U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama of Illinois, who rose to political stardom with his rousing speech during the Democratic National Convention, expressed concerns about trickery.

"We get bamboozled sometimes, but not this time," he said.

Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, who is also chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee's Black Caucus, told the crowd of about 300 that Republicans have twice tried to pull "shenanigans."

She referenced the attempt to remove 17,000 Democratic voters from the rolls by a Republican and the recent allegations of Republican operatives destroying Democratic voter registration forms.

"They stole the election four years ago in Florida, and we're not going to tolerate it Nov. 2," Atkinson Gates said.

Former Sen. Bob Dole lodged similar allegations against the Democratic Party in a statement issued through the Bush-Cheney campaign.

"Here we go again," Dole said. "In 2000, Democrats tried to disenfranchise military voters in Florida. They tried to do it again in 2004 using the same cast of characters."

Party representatives are painting Nevada, a contentious battleground for the presidential election, as the Florida of the 2004 elections. In Florida, some voters used punch-card ballots, resulting in a significant number of votes that could not be detected.

Donna Brazile, who ran Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign and is now in charge of the party's voter national protection efforts, paid a brief visit to Las Vegas on Friday.

"We're trying to prevent it from becoming a Florida," Brazile said of Nevada. "We're determined not to let Florida happen again, and what happened here in Nevada has gone in the books as a Florida-style attack."

Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, won't dismiss the possibility that Democrats are trying to lay the groundwork to later challenge an unfavorable election result.

"It certainly isn't a stretch to think this is part of a broader legal strategy," he said. "This isn't just in Nevada. They have teams of lawyers looking for things all over."

Agreed, said David Damore, an assistant political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"If you read the aftermath of Florida, they (Democrats) got overwhelmed down there. In that sense, they are prepared" this time, Damore said. "I imagine if the shoe was on the other foot, you'd see the same thing (from Republicans). It's just good strategy."

"There are a lot of Democrats still bitter over 2000," Damore said. "This may be overreacting in that sense, but there's a lot at stake."

The Democrats' claims of voter fraud did not surprise Republicans, said Carr, chairman of the state party. The Republican Party referred to an Election Day manual published Thursday on www.drudgereport.com.

A portion of the manual, which a Democratic official said is authentic, says: "If no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a 'pre-emptive strike,' " such as issuing a press release "quoting party/minority/civil rights leadership as denouncing tactics that discourage people from voting."

Clark County Democratic Party officials said after Adair's ruling Friday they had not decided whether to appeal.

"We're still considering our legal options," said Jon Summers, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party.

However, he pointed out that Adair in her remarks from the bench said defrauded voters have another legal remedy.

"If they are a victim of this company, they can come back and file their own individual lawsuits," Summers said.

The FBI and the Nevada Secretary of State's office are looking into the Democrats' allegations, but neither agency has concluded that laws were violated.

Review-Journal writer Omar Sofradzija contributed to this report.