18 voters reviewed for fraud in Morse recall
The El Paso County Clerk and Recorder’s Office announced Friday that it referred 18 names to the 4th Judicial District Attorney to review for potential voter fraud during the Senate District 11 recall election of John Morse. The District Attorney’s Office will investigate any wrongdoing and determine whether criminal charges are in order.
“After every election, we meet as an office,” Clerk and Recorder Wayne Williams told KRDO NewsChannel 13. “We review the various cases and decide which of those need to be turned over to the District Attorney’s Office.”
The Clerk and Recorders Office said that there were at least 11 people who may have used the same-day voter registration system to vote without actually residing in the district.
“With House Bill 1303 now in place, there is a greater potential for voter fraud and we must meet that increased potential with heightened vigilance,” Williams said in a written statement. “We will pass along any activity that warrants investigation and I know that our district attorney will prosecute any illegal activity to the fullest extent of the law. Unfortunately there are a number of instances in which the new legislation only permits us to prosecute after the fact rather than preventing wrongdoing.”
Executive director of the El Paso County Democratic Party, Christy Le Lait, told KRDO NewsChannel 13 that she believes the voter fraud investigation is misleading and there is nothing wrong with same-day registration as long as people are honest.
“I think this is an agenda to deflect some other criticisms and to position himself (Williams) better in his race for Secretary of State,” Le Lait said. “For people whose signatures didn’t match exactly and they didn’t bother to call the County Clerk’s Office? I think that’s a little heavy handed.”
The list of voters suspected of abusing the same-day voter registration system is comprised of four Republicans, four unaffiliated voters, and ten Democratic voters, according to the Clerk and Recorder’s Office.
Le Lait said the Democratic Party flagged 28 cases of suspected forgery in the recall election. The District Attorney’s Office, she says, is dragging its feet in investigating the cases. Some of those suspected forgeries come from employees of Kennedy Enterprises, according to Le Lait. Kennedy Enterprises, a petition gathering company, gathered signatures for the the recall petition for Morse and is working on the recall attempt of Sen. Evie Hudak of Arvada.
“There are some higher profile people being investigated through the Attorney General’s Office that may embarrass the County Clerk’s Office,” Le Lait said.
