Investigation Pursued in OC by Dem Party over False GOP Registrations

While we relayed here last week about an OC Register investigation that revealed petitioners conned many young voters into registering as Republican, the Orange County District Attorney’s office has now responded by saying it will work with the Secretary of State’s office to further investigate the charges of voter fraud. The Chairman of the Democratic Party of Orange County, Frank Barbaro, has taken the matter one step further by writing a letter to Andre Birotte Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, in order to request that his office get involved in the investigation as well.  The OC Register reports that Barbaro said the following of the case:

“Their acts not only constitute fraudulent voter registration, fraudulent document filing, and perjury but could well violate the National Voter Registration Act, which makes it a federal crime to the procure or submit voter registration applications that are ‘known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held. I am calling for the ‘grownups’ in the Republican Party to step up and start acting as responsible adults and to stop this voter registration fraud. Paying an $8 ‘bounty’ to operatives who in turn deceive students who sign registration cards is not only illegal but an act of desperation by a political party whose appeal is fading fast in Orange County and across the nation.”

Barbaro also suggested that the investigation could concern the Department of Justice if the National Voter Registration Act was violated. Many are blaming the so-called bounty program in which petitioners get $8 per signature as the reason that such alleged fraud may have been perpetrated. Read more here.