A public employees union claimed Monday that it has uncovered widespread fraud in the Ralph Nader campaign's effort to gather enough signatures to qualify for Oregon's ballot. Nader's campaign discounted the allegations and said the Service Employees International Union -- which supports Democrat Sen. John Kerry -- is trying to intimidate its petitioners as a way of keeping the independent presidential candidate off the state's ballot.
Nader must collect 15,306 valid signatures from registered voters by Aug. 24 to run in Oregon. Earlier this year, he twice failed to draw 1,000 voters to a convention, which is another way of qualifying. In those attempts, he received help from some Republicans -- who think his presence would help President Bush win the state -- and hindrance from Democrats -- who fear Nader's candidacy would drain votes from their nominee.
The service employees union, which said it has spent as much as $25,000 to investigate Nader's petition drive, held a news conference to release dozens of examples of what it said appear to be falsified names and addresses. It provided written statements from 26 Portland-area voters who said their names were on petitions they did not sign.
The documents included many examples of duplicates, including one woman whose name showed up on three petition sheets. One man was listed twice on the same sheet with two addresses, one of which is in the middle of a park in Gresham.
"The evidence of systemic fraud is clear and convincing, and goes beyond anything we have seen before in Oregon," said Alice Dale, president of SEIU Local 49.
Margaret Olney, a lawyer representing the union, said investigators checked 269 signatures and found 87 were valid. In the rest of the cases, she said, the addresses were incorrect or nonexistent, or the voters told investigators they did not sign a Nader petition.
The union also presented the sworn statement of a janitor who said he heard three Nader petitioners, who are paid by the signature, sitting in an isolated stairwell discussing techniques for forging names.
Michael McCarthy, who said he overheard the conversation at the Skidmore Fountain Building where Nader's canvassing operation is headquartered, told reporters that one of the petitioners described "ways to make sure the forged signatures looked more real."
Later, he said, he saw a petitioner with pages ripped out of the telephone directory copying names onto a sheet.
Ellen Lowe, a veteran human-services lobbyist, also appeared at the news conference to say she has filed 17 complaints with the state Elections Division accusing canvassers of fraud.
Greg Kafoury, a Portland attorney who is Nader's top campaign aide in Oregon, argued that SEIU was picking out isolated examples of problems that crop up in almost any petition campaign. He said some petitioners were fired early in the drive for falsifying signatures.
Kafoury said he was incensed that union investigators had visited many canvassers to deliver a letter warning that falsifying petitions is a felony. He said the letter was worded to scare petitioners into thinking they could be held liable for an invalid signature, even if they believed the signer was a properly registered voter.
"The obvious goal is to intimidate people so they stop gathering signatures because they know we are close," Kafoury said. "Visiting people at their homes at night to threaten them with prison is gangster tactics. Nothing like this has ever been seen in Oregon before."
The letter tells petitioners that "your signature certifies that you personally witnessed each signature collected on the petition and that you obtained the signatures from qualified voters. Falsely signing the petition may result in conviction of a felony with a fine of up to $100,000 or prison for up to five years."
Olney said the letter simply restates elections law. She also said investigators weren't picking out only suspicious signatures when they began investigating about 4,000 signatures the Nader campaign submitted to Multnomah County elections offices last week.
Kafoury said the Nader campaign has collected about 10,000 signatures, adding that about two-thirds of those submitted to the counties have been approved. That is a standard error rate, he said. If he doesn't lose many petitioners, Kafoury said, he is confident of making the ballot.
But Nader's campaign is under mounting time pressure. Elections officials have warned that the campaign needs to submit all of its signatures to the counties early this week so they can be verified and turned over to the state by Aug. 24.
In addition, Multnomah County elections officials say they have tightened procedures as a result of the SEIU investigation and are watching for duplicate signatures.
Anne Martens, the secretary of state's spokeswoman, said, "We take fraud very seriously, and we will investigate every complaint."
Jeff Mapes: 503-221-8209; jeffmapes@news.oregonian.com
Poster Comment:
My press conference statement:
Good morning, I’m Michael McCarthy and I’m here today to describe the fraudulent behavior I have witnessed.
First, let me tell you a little about myself. I am a longtime forest activist and a strong supporter of Ralph Nader and his work. In 2000 I was an ardent Nader for President supporter and worked hard on his campaign here in Oregon. I still believe that he would be a wonderful President and have the utmost respect for him and his lifetime of activism. That is why I was shocked to discover the fraud and identity theft that was being committed on his behalf – I know what it feels like to have my identity stolen, it happened to me and it took several years for me to clear up the situation.
In the course of my duties as a janitor for the Portland Saturday Market I work in and around the Skidmore Fountain Building, where the signature gathering office for the Nader for President Campaign is located. In late July I encountered a number of signature gatherers and began to witness a number of events that got me very worried.
One afternoon I noticed a group of three signature gatherers, one of whom had already approached me about signing his sheet, sitting together in a back corner of the office building. I was curious as to their activities because it is an area that was not usually frequented by the other circulators and was quite out of the way from their normal traffic flow.
I was in a position to overhear their conversation and was shocked at what they were saying. All of them expressed dismay over how difficult it was for them to gather signatures on the street, because of, as they described it, the bad vibes they were getting from Oregonians when asked to sign the Nader petition. One of the three circulators was telling the others how this could be “free money.” He told them how to copy signatures from previous initiative sheets like he does, and how he had copies of those sheets that they could use. He went on to describe ways to make sure the forged signatures looked more real, like using different pens, how to alter the angle of the pens to make the writing look different and many other ways to make “the product look as real as possible”
They kept using the phrase “free money” over and over again.
Four days after overhearing that conversation, I observed a different circulator sitting at a table in a public area of the building frantically writing on a number of petition sheets. I looked closer, and saw that he had ripped-out pages from the phone book in front of him and was copying names onto his sheets from the pages.
To me all of this activity was plain theft. It is the right of the individual to sign or not sign any petition. When someone falsifies signatures, they are stealing someone’s identity and they are directly assaulting a very important tool – direct access to democracy past the oligarchy. We need to keep that process honest.
Being on the Oregon ballot is a right that ought to come through the support of the people, not the fraudulent efforts of those only interested in easy money.
Thank you,
Mike McCarthy