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(Oct. 13) -- Some Nevadans, who thought they had registered to vote, may have had their applications tossed in the trash.
Channel 8 Eyewitness News has learned that countless voter registration forms may have been destroyed and never processed. If you are one of those people, you will not be able to vote. This could have happened to hundreds or thousands of people. You need to look no further than Florida in the last presidential election.
In the final hours to register to vote on Tuesday night, thousands waited in line at the Clark County Government Center. They filled out the form and waited patiently for the next available clerk.
Democrat Natalia Connerly isn't here because she's a procrastinator but, instead, she may be a victim of voter fraud. Months ago, someone signed her up outside a grocery store at Lake Mead and Nellis Boulevard.
"I haven't gotten anything in the mail. I've been looking for my voter registration card that I normally get and I don't have anything," said Natalia Connerly, voter.
Eyewitness News has spoken with employees of the private voter registration company called Voters Outreach of America, also known as America Votes.
More than 300 part-time workers have been canvassing southern Nevada shopping malls and grocery stores collecting registrations. Former employee Eric Russell says his supervisor would destroy the democratic registrations and keep the republican ones.
"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us," Russell said, adding, "I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assistant to get those from me."
In Reno, Washoe County's Registrar of Voters is taking a much closer look at registration forms. The FBI is now being called in to look at allegations that the same company, Voter Outreach of America forged nearly 200 registrations.
The Republican National Committee is primarily responsible for the hiring of the group in Nevada. Earlene Forsythe, the chair of the Nevada Republican Committee says her party is surprised by the alleged fraud.
"The Republican National Party would never intentionally hire any staff people to come into the state to intentionally do voter fraud."
In Clark County, Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax says an investigation could also be launched against the group.
"If it's true that some illegal things have happened and we see some evidence of that, we'll react accordingly. We'll probably start with the district attorney's office," Lomax said.
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Bradbury plans to investigate election complaint
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
The Associated Press
10/13/2004, 12:33 a.m. PT
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Secretary of State Bill Bradbury and Attorney General Hardy Myers plan to investigate allegations that a paid canvasser might have destroyed voter registration forms.
"There have been allegations made that someone threw out some voter registration forms that had been submitted to them," Bradbury told The Associated Press late Tuesday. "This is a violation of the law and I will meet with the attorney general in the morning to talk about what we can do to pursue this, and to make sure it doesn't happen again."
Bradbury learned of the conduct from KGW-TV, which interviewed Mike Johnson, 20, a canvasser who said he was instructed to only accept Republican registration forms. He told the TV reporter that he "might" destroy forms turned in by Democrats.
"I have never in my five years as secretary of state ever seen an allegation like the one that came up tonight — ever," Bradbury said. "I mean, frankly, it just totally offends me that someone would take someone else's registration and throw it out."
Bradbury said the law requires that groups registering voters submit forms no later than five days after they were filled out. He added that canvassers can't turn away a voter because of his or her party affiliation.
Rory Smith, a spokeswoman for the Republican Party in Oregon, said the young man interviewed by KGW-TV was not in their rolls. "We do not condone this type of behavior," Smith told the Portland-based station.
In Nevada earlier Tuesday, KLAS-TV, a CBS affiliate, interviewed an employee of a private voter registration organization who said hundreds — perhaps thousands — of Democratic registration forms had been destroyed.
Eric Russell, a former Voters Outreach of America employee, told the TV station he had personally witnessed his supervisor take out Democratic registration forms from the pile and shred them.
The company has been largely funded by the Republican National Committee, the station reported.
A spokesman for the Las Vegas bureau of the FBI said he did not know if an investigation had been initiated.
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