BY CHARLEE BEASOR
Terrell Owens and Tony Romo, two of the star players for the Dallas Cowboys, do not live in Nevada.
And yet, they were registered to vote in that state in the upcoming November election. But it’s not just Nevada — a northern Indiana Jimmy John’s sandwich shop and incarcerated felons across the country have also been falsely registered.
A host of voter fraud allegations recently came to light following a federal raid on a Las Vegas chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and a New York Times article alleging six swing states of breaking federal elections laws.
The Times article suggested that the six states — Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada, and North Carolina — have broken the federal law in two ways: that Michigan and Colorado are removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election; and that Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio have allegedly been improperly using the Social Security database to verify registration applications.
Secretary of State Todd Rokita is the chief election officer for Indiana. During a 45-county tour of Indiana last week, Rokita said in a statement that Indiana was using all of the correct technology to verify registered voters.
“Giving Indiana voters and taxpayers the chance to participate in the fairest and most accurate election possible is my number one priority as chief election officer,” Rokita said. “This is not the time to start foregoing or circumventing the process we have had in place for years that ensures accuracy in our election. We built a statewide voter registration system well within the perimeters of state and federal law.”
Most of the verification issues have come from the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which states have been trying to follow in verifying submitted voter registrations and removing voters who should not be listed. Indiana uses a system that checks with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Health, and the Department of Correction.
Jim Gavin, communications director for the Secretary of State, said the state uses a system that begins with local officials and includes a comparative computer system, an address verification, and finally the photo identification that must be presented to vote. He said the state has not broken any laws in the election process by using the system.
“The Help America Vote Act is federal law,” Gavin said. “The requirements it establishes are minimum requirements and nothing in the law can prevent a state from ‘establishing election technology and administration requirements that are more strict than the requirements established,’ so long as such state requirements are not inconsistent with federal requirements.
“The New York Times article really struck us in its tone. For some reason people have chosen to scruitinize Indiana’s election law, which is one of the most progressive in the nation in terms of providing election integrity.”
Rokita also said the number of Social Security Administration inquiries is “not out of line with the number of registrations.”
Wrong absentee ballots
Marion County is also seeing its share of problems, namely with residents receiving incorrect absentee ballots in the mail.
On Thursday of last week, a press conference was held outside of the home of Eric Eichholtz, next door neighbor to State Sen. Teresa Lubbers who represents District 30. Marion County GOP Chairman Tom John, Eichholtz, Lubbers, and a few other neighbors who had been mailed the wrong absentee ballots spoke to the press about the problem of receiving the wrong ballot.
“If I hadn’t known Teresa, I probably wouldn’t have noticed,” Eichholtz said of his ballot that did not even include Lubbers’ name.
Tom Foltz, who lives in Lawrence Township, was mailed the ballot for Wayne Township. He said he called the clerk’s office and was told that his name would be put on a list.
“If I had filled in the ballot and mailed it in, it would have been rejected by precinct workers and I would have lost my vote,” Foltz said. “My concern is for those who may not know what precinct they live in.”
Both Lubbers and John are asking voters to check their ballots carefully for the correct information before sending them in.
“The reason this is so disturbing, I’ve focused my election on the young people and the absentee ballot voters — and now the people in my district that I’ve been targeting don’t have the ability to vote for me in the election,” Lubbers said.
The Marion County Clerk’s office could not be reached for comment as of press time.
Local system
As for Hendricks County, Clerk Cindy Spence said she’s not heard of any kind of local voter fraud or problems.
“There are a variety of different methods that we go through to ensure voters are who they say they are and with the system that we’re using we’ve not really had any trouble,” Spence said. “I’ve been verifying all of the ballots before they go out.”
The Hendricks County Clerk’s Office uses a computer system for the voting machines and either asks for a driver’s license number or the last four digits of the registrant’s social security number.
“We prefer for them to give us their driver’s license number and if they don’t have that, we ask for the last four digits of the social security number, but we don’t want the whole number,” she said.
Spence said there is always the potentional for error, though her office does its best at getting out the correct ballots.
“We have got the best computer system for the voting machines, it really scruitinizes these ballots that we have for mail,” she said. “You will always have that factor of human error, and we’ve got some check and balances, but if it happens all we can do is apologize, but we do go over and beyond.”
charlee.beasor@flyergroup.com
