[EL] today I learned about one voter who did frequently impersonate voters at polls

[Richard Winger]

It doesn't give me pleasure to send this e-mail, but it is interesting.  Today I had a conversation with an attorney who said he had a client in 1996 who claimed to have impersonated 30 different individuals at the polls during the primary and perhaps the run-off primary.  He was a moderate Republican.  He would scan the obituaries in Oklahoma newspapers, and find people who had died fairly soon before the election.  He would try to deduce what party the deceased individual was a member of.  When voters go to the polls in Oklahoma on primary day, the voter is expected to identify himself or herself and announce which party he or she is a member of.  Oklahoma has closed primaries.

The individual would say "Democrat" if the deceased person he was impersonating seemed to have the characteristics of a typical Democrat, and vice versa for Republican.  If he guessed wrong, on being challenged he would claim that he suddenly remembered that he had switched last year.  He was tripped up in one polling place when one of the poll workers recognized him and knew that he was not the person he was claiming to be.  He then hired an attorney.  But the pollworker who knew about the deception then moved out of Oklahoma and was not available as a witness, so the man was never charged.

California has a system by which, when a death certificate is filled out, a copy of the certificate is sent to the county election officials.  I am amazed that every state doesn't do this.  That system won't catch people who die out of state, though.

Richard Winger

415-922-9779

PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
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