Campaign workers suspected of fraud

Campaign workers suspected of fraud

BY DAWSON BELL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER



Overzealous or unscrupulous campaign workers in several Michigan counties are under investigation for voter-registration fraud, suspected of attempting to register nonexistent people or forging applications for already-registered voters, election and law enforcement officials said Wednesday.


Officials in Wayne, Oakland, Ingham and Eaton counties have been contacted about the problem, which appears to be an outgrowth of unprecedented efforts by political interest groups to register thousands of new voters before the November election.


State Elections Director Christopher Thomas said he hoped criminal prosecutions would result. Thomas, who has held his post for more than 20 years, said the scale of voter-registration drives this year and the irregularities were like nothing he had seen before.


Although there is little likelihood that phony registrations could be used to affect the outcome of an election because of safeguards in place, alleged fraud undermines confidence in the system and burdens local elected officials, Thomas said.


"We don't want to give the impression that there are a lot of people who will be able to vote" using a phony registration, Thomas said, "but these clerks have enough to do without having to screen thousands of duplicates" and bogus applications.


Ingham County Sheriff's Detective Mark Bowser said an investigation of suspected registration fraud has been under way since late August and could be turned over to the county prosecutor by the end of the week.


Bowser said it is unclear how widespread the problems are. He said the investigation has reviewed "a couple thousand questionable registrations."


Representatives from two groups whose workers have submitted apparently-fraudulent applications -- the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan (PIRGIM) and Project Vote -- downplayed the issue Wednesday, insisting that it involved only a handful of workers and a limited number of registrations.

---