Election-Campaign Law

Interesting OC Register story on problems in petition signature collection

By Michael Alvarez

There was an interesting story in the OC Register recently, “Petitioners conned voters into switching to the GOP.” A similar issue arose in the recent past in Orange County, as the story discusses.

Here’s a bit from the story that discusses their investigation:

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. The Register found an additional 74 voters who said they were duped or coerced into registering to vote as a Republican by signature gatherers who initially asked them to sign petitions for causes like legalizing marijuana, fighting cancer or cleaning up beaches.
In all, the Register called 348 registered Republicans in central Orange County and reached 90 of them. Of those, only 16 said they wanted to be Republicans. The rest told stories of fast-talking petitioners, some advertising free sunglasses if they signed.
All of the voters identified by the Register are listed as under 28 years old; many said they knew little about politics or voting. A few, when told they were listed on the county voter rolls as a Republican, asked, “What is a Republican?”

Full post as published by Election Updates on April 18, 2010 (boomark / email).