GOP claims voter fraud widespread
Party demands probe as they contend many voted more than once or posthumously
Friday, September 16, 2005
BY JOE DONOHUE
Star-Ledger Staff
It's not just a Jersey joke, state Republican Party officials said yesterday: The dead really do vote.
After a summer-long analysis of the 4.7 million names on New Jersey's voter rolls, state GOP officials said yesterday there is evidence of "widespread" fraud -- thousands of cases where people apparently voted more than once, or voted posthumously.
The Republicans blamed Attorney General Peter Harvey, a Democrat, for failing to clean up the voter registration lists. They threatened to file a lawsuit unless Harvey acts quickly to head off problems in the Nov. 8 election.
"I know this is going to be a close election and I'm deeply concerned about the integrity of the process," said Tom Wilson, chairman of the Republican State Committee. "It astounds me that with all that happened in Florida and Ohio and Washington, that we've not been more aggressive."
Wilson called on Democrats to join in a call for a crackdown on voter fraud.
Richard McGrath, spokesman for the Democratic State Committee, reacted skeptically. "If the Republican Party conducted the investigation, it's safe to assume the facts and figures are wrong and the findings are suspect," he said.
At a news conference in Trenton, Republican officials said their analysis found:
54,601 people were registered in more than one county, and 4,397 appeared to have voted twice in the 2004 presidential election.
170,558 people were registered to vote in New Jersey as well as other states. Of those, 90,025 voted in New Jersey last year, and 6,572 appeared to have voted in two states.
4,755 individuals listed in county records as deceased also were listed as voting last year.
4,755 individuals listed in county records as deceased also were listed as voting last year.
Voting from the grave has long been the stuff of Jersey lore, especially in Hudson County. But the GOP analysis found matches between the lists of the dead and the lists of the voting in all 21 counties around the state.
The highest number, 609, was found in heavily populated Bergen County. Monmouth (450), Camden (430), Essex (354) and Union (325) all had more than Hudson, which tied with Morris at 298.
Wilson refused to release the names of those who cast suspicious ballots, saying there could be criminal charges. And he said the analysis did not include the party affiliations of the allegedly bogus voters, because it was conducted in nonpartisan fashion for possible use in court.
But Wilson did name two names, of prominent individuals who should have been purged from the voter rolls because of felony convictions. One is developer Charles Kushner, a major Democratic donor who is serving a two-year prison sentence for violating tax and campaign laws and retaliating against an FBI witness, his own sister. The other is James Treffinger, the former Republican Essex County executive who served 13 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice and mail fraud.
Mark Sheridan, the Republican Party's attorney, said he presented the Attorney General's Office with full information on a computer disk yesterday, along with a letter demanding a response within a week. If there is no action, the party will file a lawsuit to compel it, he said.
"The simple fact is, nothing is being done by your office to safeguard the solemnity of New Jersey's elections," said the letter.
Lee Moore, spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, confirmed the letter was received but did not say how Harvey will respond. "The letter will be reviewed, directed appropriately, and a determination will be made as to what course of action is called for, if any," he said.
On the campaign trail yesterday, the Democratic candidate for governor, U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine, won an endorsement from the New Jersey State Policemen's Benevolent Association, which represents 29,000 law enforcement officers. His Republican opponent, Doug Forrester, went before the Mercer County Chamber of Commerce to outline a plan to help improve the business climate in the state.
Forrester also seized on a report in The Record of Hackensack to bolster his argument that Corzine is prone to conflicts of interest.
The newspaper reported that a Senate committee vote Corzine cast in March 2004 on a treaty with Japan resulted in a break on Japanese taxes for himself and other investors in a bank there.
Corzine spokesman Tom Shea denied that the treaty resulted in any tax savings for the senator. "He got no benefit from this vote whatsoever. Zero," Shea said.
Forrester said Corzine should publicly release all details related to the Japanese investment. "Participating in these obvious conflicts of interest is exactly why Jon Corzine is part of the problem, not part of the solution," Forrester said.
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