City of SAN Francisco Should Check it's Database for Voter Fraud

Sorry, but the home addresses of city employees are confidential information. It would be much more effective to simply require a valid, current ID to vote. Since California requires no proof of address to register to vote, you can't verify city employee voting registration while ignoring address claims by everyone else. Either verify everyone's address when they vote, or no one's.

If the coverup continues we will know that more parties are involved within city government. It seems such a simple thing to do, it would either clear city workers of involvement, or show a conspiracy to manipulate the vote. In either case it should be done rapidly. Hope the media monitors this one as well as our elected officials.

Running an internal database check for out of town city Voter Employee violators. Remains within the internal city departments, that information is not made public only the violators are turned over to the proper authorities, for due process of law. Payroll information is not made public nor is Voter Registration information. Only Violators are turned over to the proper authorities.

There are about 5-7 people registered to vote at my address, many of whom haven't lived there in 5 years. They are listed at the precinct on the long list of voters, and I receive lots of voter's pamphlets for them. Should one actually try to get them off the list, and how? This would be a great way for people to vote multiple times, by taking one of these names.

That's not the point. It is discrimination when you verify only SOME people's address without verifying all of them. You cannot justify verifying the addresses of only city workers when the state has a policy of requiring no verification of address to register to vote, or to cast a vote. This is what you get when you have a system that lets anyone register, at any address, at any time, with no verification that the person actually lives at the address. Personally, I believe that everyone should have to prove residency, provide verification of address, and have a valid ID to vote. FYI, in Mexico one must have a voter card to cast a vote. It is issued by the government. You also have to be fingerprinted when you vote and your card is marked to show that you voted. The same system here would weed out a lot of fraud.

I am an auditor/accountant and I know voter fraud is rampant all across the US. There needs to be more access to Double Blind Vote Testing. The Counts of course need to be made, but due to anonymity, the shuffle can still be made.

I am from Alabama where they hold elections in Churches and forbid a huge portion of the populace from voting. The Trilogy of corruption is rampant due to the fact that we are nothing more than a collection of city states that are in reality fiefdoms with their own laws, punishments, biases, prejudices, and ethics violations, and all controlled by the wealthiest 2% in every fiefdom, with of course the henchmen of the lower caste doing their bidding.

A dictatorship is a dictatorship. When the darkness is greatest is when the light first appears, as that is when the cock-a-roaches scatter and scamper. Many in governments worldwide orchestrate wars for their own gain, and in the end they are all the wealthiest 2%, whether it is Russia, China, or the US.

A dictatorship is always going to be a dictatorship.. Look for the true source of war and you will find some men sending younger of the lower caste to vent angers, distract from home town prowess and dissent, and make a fortune for the old cold calculating hands that wring profit from death.

After reading the comments, it showed blant holes for abuse in the current voter system. I only saw two suggested remedies, there must be more we have a major problem otherwise we are allowing our precious right to vote go to hell, and anybody can take advantage of the system. There has to be ways to nail the cheaters and restore integrity to San Francisco Voter Rolls.

Is it not the responsibility of the Elections Department to verify the Registered voter list?
Sounds like the person in charge of that department is not doing their job and, maybe should be removed. Where is the voting integrity in San Francisco? I guess as long it works for special interest it won’t be corrected. What about We The People?

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris opened an investigation Friday into allegations that city-paid workers were pressured to campaign and vote for Gavin Newsom for mayor and other complaints of election improprieties.

"If there has been any criminal misconduct people should and will be held accountable,'' Debbie Mesloh, Harris' spokeswoman, said in announcing the investigation.

Mesloh said the investigation will focus on accounts by street cleaners employed by a city-funded nonprofit group who told The Chronicle they were pressured by their supervisors to cast absentee ballots for Newsom and walk precincts for his campaign in the Nov. 4 general election and the Dec. 9 runoff against Board of Supervisors President Matt Gonzalez.

Investigators also will review a list of 150 complaints catalogued by Gonzalez campaign workers on the day of the runoff, Mesloh said. The complaints -- made public by Gonzalez supporters on Thursday -- range from eyewitness accounts of physical and verbal intimidation at polling places to people being turned away or given misleading information about whether they could cast a vote.

Harris' investigation is the third to focus on the allegations of the street cleaners. Others have been launched by City Attorney Dennis Herrera and California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, the state's chief elections official.

None of the allegations reported by The Chronicle or aired by Gonzalez backers implicate Newsom or paid members of the new mayor's campaign.

"As we've said again and again, there will be no tolerance for these types of activities," Peter Ragone, a spokesman for Newsom, said after receiving word of the district attorney's probe. "We welcome a fair and swift investigation of the allegations made over the past several weeks."

Ragone added that investigators should be looking into "all the allegations" of election-related misconduct during the 2003.

In the weeks leading up to the Dec. 9 mayoral runoff, the Newsom campaign charged that a Gonzalez strategist, Ross Mirkarimi, who works as an investigator in the district attorney's office, was campaigning on public time. Mirkarimi denied the allegation.

The street cleaners told The Chronicle that Mohammed Nuru, the No. 2 official at the city Department of Public Works, and their supervisors at the nonprofit San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners, or SLUG, told the workers that their jobs depended on Newsom winning the election.

Nuru and Jonathan Gomwalk, the executive director of SLUG, denied wrongdoing. Nuru said he never pressured anyone to do anything against his or her will. Gomwalk said SLUG urged workers to take part in the election as part of a civics component of a welfare-to-work program run by the organization.

The city attorney investigation is focused on whether state and local laws against use of public funds for political activity were violated. SLUG is funded by the Public Works Department.

The secretary of state probe focuses on possible violations of the California Election Code, which prohibits inducing someone to vote for or against a candidate in exchange for money, gifts or promises of a job.

The decision by District Attorney Harris to investigate the accounts of the street cleaners could entail questioning members of her own campaign staff. Harris defeated incumbent District Attorney Terence Hallinan in the Dec. 9 runoff election.

Some of the street cleaners told The Chronicle that Gomwalk, the SLUG executive director, told them to participate in a Dec. 2 get-out-the-vote event sponsored by the Harris for District Attorney campaign. They said they rode in vans organized by Harris to the Department of Elections at City Hall, where they said they were pressured by SLUG crew chiefs to cast absentee ballots for Newsom.

After casting their ballots, they said, crew chiefs asked them to turn over their voter receipt stubs. One street cleaner said a crew chief peered over her shoulder as she voted.

Mesloh said the district attorney was unaware of any activities involving her campaign that could preclude her from investigating the street cleaners' allegations.

"We do not know of any conflict of interest," she said. "We've opened the investigation and the D.A. feels strongly that if there was any misconduct, we want to find that out quickly and that individuals need to be held accountable. ''