[Mb-civic] Students Have Parties Switched by Bogus Petitions

[Michael Butler]

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    Students Have Parties Switched by Bogus Petitions
    By Dennis B. Roddy
    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

     Friday 22 October 2004
 Registration changed to Republican without consent


    Scores of college students in Pennsylvania and Oregon have had their
voting registrations switched by teams of canvassers circulating bogus
petitions and, in some cases, partially concealed voter registration forms
students were requested to sign.

     The canvassers have visited campuses asking students to sign petitions
advocating lower auto insurance rates, medical marijuana or stricter rape
laws, according to elections officials.

     After signing their names, the students were pressured into registering
with the Republican Party by being told that their signatures otherwise
would be invalid, or they were asked to fill out the signature and address
portions of blank voter registration forms as proof of citizenship. In
multiple instances, students already registered to vote have had their
registrations changed without their consent, elections officials said
yesterday.

     Petition canvassers in Pennsylvania apparently did not identify
themselves, although one told a University of Pittsburgh student that he was
being paid by the Republican Party.

     In another instance, the head of the Oregon Students Association said a
canvasser at Portland State University told him he was with Project America
Votes, a Republican-backed registration effort.

     Elections officials yesterday said the switch in party registration
would not affect the students' eligibility to cast ballots for the
candidates of their choice on Nov. 2, although it could determine the party
primaries in which they could take part in the future. Several said they
were mystified why the canvassers would bother to change registrations,
although one told a student in Oregon that he was receiving $12 for each new
Republican registration.

     Students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a branch campus of
Montgomery County Community College told officials they were tricked into
filling out blank voter registration forms, listing their names and
addresses when they signed a petition advocating the legalization of
marijuana for medicinal purposes.

     "I'm pretty sure that they weren't students," said Erik Strobl, an IUP
student who said he signed the petition. Strobl said the canvasser then
asked him to put his signature and address on a voter registration card.
Although Strobl had already registered to vote as a Democat, he did so when
he was told his signature was needed to verify his status as a voter.

     Several days later, Strobl received a mailed notification that his
party registration had been switched to Republican.

     IUP appeared to have been hardest hit by the scam. County voter
registration director Donna Hoover said as many as 400 registration suspect
forms have arrived in her office. Most of them, she said, changed the
registered party of students who had signed up to vote just days earlier
during a registration drive by two other groups, America Coming Together and
VIP.

     "Most of the students had registered Democrat the day before," Hoover
said. "I've talked to the sheriff."

     Markings on many of the forms appeared to be in the same handwriting,
she said.

     "I kind of thought there was something odd. I don't even know which
party would have done it," Hoover said. "These people circled the different
spots [on the form] for the people to fill in."

     In Allegheny County, elections director Mark Wolosik referred another
case, involving a Squirrel Hill college student, to county detectives.
Ruairi McDonnell said his registration was switched from Independent to
Republican by someone who circulated a petition to lower auto insurance
rates for young drivers on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh last
month.

     McDonnell said the man instructed him to fill out portions of a voter
registration form, although McDonnell told the man he already had registered
to vote.

     "He then told me I would have to register as a Republican because
'that's how we get our funding.' I said I would not. He kept the form which
contained only my name and address and certainly did not indicate I was a
Republican," McDonnell said in a letter to the Allegheny County Department
of Elections.

     Several days later, McDonnell received notice from the elections
department that he had changed his registration from Independent to
Republican.

     In Montgomery, an identical scam took place in September, when students
at the Blue Bell campus of Montgomery County Community College were handed
the marijuana petition.

     "They're just trying to get numbers," said Joseph Passarella, director
of elections for Montgomery, who said he has so far received a handful of
complaints from students who said their party affiliation had been changed
without their consent.

     Susan Adams, a spokeswoman for the college, said the petition
canvassers did not have permission from the school to work on the campus.

     Project America Votes was a name used by canvassers for Sproul &
Associates, an Arizona-based consultant under contract with the Republican
National Committee.

     Nathan Sproul, the firm's owner, yesterday denied that his workers had
used petitions to bait students into party switches.

     "This is clearly the Democratic plan to make these baseless
allegations," said Heather Layman, a spokeswoman for the Republican National
Committee. Layman said she was speaking on behalf of Sproul. She said no
Sproul workers were involved in such tactics in Oregon or Pennsylvania.

     Sproul's role in ostensibly nonpartisan voter registration drives have
triggered official investigations in several states, with canvassers
alleging they had been told to refuse to register Democrats or to discard
Democratic registration forms, leaving voters who thought they had
registered off the rolls.

 

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