HMMMM?DA to team with Secretary of State on voter registration probe
A Register investigation published Friday online and in Sunday’s newspaper exposed how signature gatherers circulating petitions had tricked young Orange County voters into registering to vote as Republicans. Since mid-March, at least 99 written complaints have been submitted to state elections officials by Orange County residents who say they were registered to vote Republican without their consent.
An independent Register investigation found an additional 74 voters who say they were tricked or coerced into registering to vote as Republican by signature gatherers who initially asked them to sign petitions to legalize marijuana, fight cancer or clean up beaches.
All of the voters identified by the Register are listed as under 28 years old and live in the 34th State Senate District, where the Republicans hope to oust incumbent Democrat Lou Correa in the fall. Unlike the Democrats, the California Republican Party has a policy of paying signature gatherers who send them new GOP voter registration cards and the Republicans are offering as much as $8 for each new GOP registration in that district.
Many believe this $8 bounty creates an incentive for signature gatherers to commit fraud.
4/28/10
Not that we should Wonder about McMahon's 5$ bounty...
But it kind of has to make ya wonder what McMahons' real intentions were when she put a bounty on college students' registration:
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3 comments:
CA Dems most certainly do pay a bounty for registrations -- DPSFV used to get something like $5 for each Dem that signed up for permanent absentee ballots, and a lower amount for each Dem registration with a phone number.
I am glad you noted that. I think the government should be the ones doing voter registration and they should be paying people to do it. But they should be paying them to do it by the hour. That way there is no monetary incentive for fraud.
Given the history of Republican voter caging, I doubt they would like to see real efforts to get people to vote. Just look at what they did in Florida to suppress votes and what they are doing in Arizona to do the same.
CA also treats reg forms like we treat ABs -- you can't circulate them unless you check out serial numbered forms from your County Clerk's office.
I agree that there's the potential for mischief with bounty-based registration, but penalizing mischief is an enforcement issue. I don't think we should make any kinds of campaign activities illegal unless there's a really, really hardcore reason why it should never be done.
Short of that, the political consequences of fraud accusations make these kinds of activities perilous, so it's rarely going to be worthwhile for a campaign to engage in them unless they have thorough documentation and stringent internal checks to prevent and detect any problems.
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