Registration cards turned in by group questionable

OLYMPIA – King County elections officials said Thursday that nearly 2,000 potentially fraudulent voter registration cards were submitted before the November election by a local branch of a group that’s come under fire across the country.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now – or ACORN – submitted 1,829 cards by mail, but they arrived after the Oct. 7 deadline for mailing registration forms and were not processed before the election, King County elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said.

Egan said that once the box was opened, elections officials grew suspicious.

“Our staff quickly noticed where there were hundreds of forms where the signatures were similar,” she said. “It appears they were fraudulently completed by a few individuals.”

Egan said elections officials immediately contacted the King County prosecutor’s office.

Kevin Whelan, spokesman for the New Orleans-based group, said it was eager to work with elections officials.

Egan said her office was advised by the prosecutor’s office and the secretary of state to flag the registrations, but to go ahead and enter them into the statewide voter database.

The database crosschecks the information with the state Department of Licensing database, the state Department of Health and the Social Security Administration database to verify identity.

Prosecutor’s spokesman Dan Donohoe said once his office receives the documents from King County elections officials, they will be reviewed and a determination will be made as to whether a criminal investigation should be initiated.

Whelan said that ACORN has never knowingly submitted a fraudulent application or sought to get an ineligible person to cast a ballot.