Ins To Help In Dornan Vote Recount Agency Grants Request To Check Voters For Record Of Citizenship

An investigation into allegations of vote fraud that began with the defeat of an Orange County congressman last year has escalated into a review of electoral records and Immigration and Naturalization Service files.

California Secretary of State Bill Jones has extended his probe to all Orange County voter records to determine if a significant number of noncitizens cast ballots in last November’s election.

The INS has granted his request for help in checking the names of the county’s 1.3 million registered voters against citizenship records.

Jones launched the investigation after GOP Rep. Robert Dornan said he was defeated for re-election because large numbers of immigrants voted illegally in his district.

Dornan alleged that an Hispanic immigrant-aid organization based in Santa Ana had registered noncitizens to vote and that many of those people cast ballots in November.

Jones said last Friday that his office had determined that the immigrant group, Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, had registered 721 people in Orange County before they became citizens and that 442 voted illegally on Nov. 5.

Although the numbers were small when compared to the 874,017 votes cast in Orange County last November, Jones decided that they were significant enough to launch a broader investigation.

“I have concluded that substantial probable cause now exists to examine the integrity of the entire Orange County voter registration file,” Jones wrote in a letter to Richard Rogers, INS district director in Los Angeles.

Officials of Hermandad have denied any wrongdoing, although they have admitted that some overly zealous immigrants may have acted on their own and voted illegally.

Nine-term congressman Dornan lost his seat to Democrat Loretta Sanchez by 984 votes last November. He called for a new election based on his charges that non-citizens voted.