Electing to Tune Out Until Voter ‘Fraud’ Case Gets Serious

I know we’re supposed to view the Dornan/Sanchez election dispute with stern faces. Honestly, for the longest time I have. I really am kind of a nut on ballot-box sanctity. So I’ve listened earnestly to Bob Dornan say we’re missing the big picture of Orange County election fraud, and I’ve listened just as earnestly to local Latino activists who, while fingering their “Boycott L.A. Times” stickers, say we’re being had by Dornan.

Throughout, I’ve tried to maintain the appropriate level of inquisitiveness and seriousness. But as the months drag on, now almost seven of them since the November election, my resolve is flagging. It’s like watching a play where you keep waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever does. You begin asking if anything ever will. Or, if it does, will anyone care? Like most people watching a play like that, I’m close to walking out of this poorly ventilated theater and into the fresh evening air. At the very least, I need a cigar break.

I decided to take another crack at it by calling Bill Hart, Dornan’s lawyer. This far into it, I asked him, what’s the strongest argument you can make for overturning Loretta Sanchez’s 984-vote upset victory over Dornan?

To his credit, Hart acknowledged the case is, essentially, still in the “where-there’s- smoke-there’s-fire” stage. Nor will he categorically say that he knows for a fact that enough illegal votes were cast to affect the outcome.

“I think Bob genuinely believes and he may well be right that the election, in his view, was stolen,” Hart said. “I don’t debate that, because the facts may bear that out. But Bob’s expressing an opinion and belief, which I understand, because he was the guy victimized by it. I wasn’t, he was. My approach is somewhat more dispassionate, because I’m confident that if [voter rolls are accurately checked], we’ll know what the number is.

“If the number is small and doesn’t approach the difference in the election, it’s still important to know. If the number is three or four hundred, that’s important to know because we need to plug the hole and fix the system. If the number is more than the margin of victory--a thousand or fifteen hundred--we need to know for that same reason but also because then it would have affected the election, and therefore there is no certainty as to who won.”

I took that to mean that Hart isn’t at all sure, after all this hubbub, whether there was widespread illegal voting or not. “I don’t want to say it too softly,” he said. “I’m convinced the number is well in excess of the margin, but out of an abundance of caution, I want to take it step by step and track what the [U.S. House of Representatives] committee is doing. . . .”

I asked Sanchez attorney Fred Woocher about the “where-there’s- smoke-there’s-fire” justification for keeping the investigation alive. “The smoke he’s alluding to is coming out of one building, and it’s completely contained, and it’s in one room,” Woocher said. “It’s not even the whole building.”

And that’s where I’ve settled in on this whole mess.

What fraud are we uncovering here? What betrayers of the American political system are we after?

The “fraud” scenario fuels some people’s paranoia, because if there’s one thing Americans like more than fair play, it’s paranoia.

I wonder if casual followers of this brouhaha would feel differently if they knew that, of the allegedly illegal voters, the bulk are people who completed citizenship classes and were registered when they voted. What tainted their votes was that they hadn’t attended a swearing-in ceremony before registering or voting--both of which are required, according to California Secretary of State Bill Jones.

Illegal? Yes.

But does that justify fears of widespread fraud? I wonder if many people wouldn’t say: “That’s it? That sounds almost like a technicality.”

I don’t advocate winking at technicalities, but with an issue as explosive as alleged illegal voting by Latinos, nuances matter.

Another point: When we think of voter fraud, we want to punish the fraudulent voter or the person who stuffed the phony ballots into the box. That’s only natural. Fraud suggests criminal intent.

Yet, the district attorney and the Dornan camp have taken pains to largely absolve the individual voters who may have improperly cast ballots.

In other words, how serious a fraud is it when the people who did the actual voting aren’t even considered the perpetrators of the fraud?

Before using “fraud” too loosely, people need to consider that most of the contested votes may well have been cast by people just a whisker away from legal citizenship.

Yet, count on this controversy to continue. Maybe the Dornan camp will uncover something more sinister than incipient citizens jumping the gun on voting. If so, I reserve the right to get serious about the issue again and perhaps get outraged.

In the meantime, I’m tuning out and subscribing to Fred Woocher’s conspiracy theory. Asked if there weren’t some common ground in all of this, he said: “This is politics now. I don’t think we’ll find any common ground, unfortunately.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.