Voter registration firm hired by Riverside GOP under fire

On March 2, the Orange County Registrar of Voters turned over dozens of suspected fraudulent registration cards to the Secretary of State and the Orange County District Attorney for review. Included in that review are complaints from voters who registered as part of a Republican Party registration drive that their party registration was changed from “Democratic” to “Republican.” The Republican Party paid registration workers a set fee (between $3 and $10, according to news reports) for each new Republican voter signed up.

On March 6, the San Bernardino County District Attorney began looking at problems with nearly 3,000 voter registration forms submitted recently in connection with a San Bernardino County Republican Party voter registration drive that paid registration workers a set fee ($6, according to news reports) for every Republican voter registered.

BOWEN RENEWS INITIATIVE REFORM EFFORT

NEW MEASURE WOULD BAN PER-SIGNATURE PAYMENTS & REQUIRE INITIATIVE PETITION SIGNATURE GATHERERS TO REVEAL WHO IS FINANCING THE PROPOSAL

SACRAMENTO – Eliminating fraud in voter registration and initiative signature gathering efforts, as well as requiring people pushing initiatives to tell would-be petition signers who is financing the initiative effort are the goals of two bills unveiled today by Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach).

“Per-signature payments are an invitation to cheat and it doesn’t matter which party is writing the check,” said Bowen, the chairwoman of the Senate Elections, Reapportionment & Constitutional Amendments Committee. “If people are getting paid $10 for every signature they get on an initiative petition or for every voter registration card they collect, they have an incentive to defraud the system in a way that a volunteer or someone making $10 an hour doesn’t.”