Voter registration fraud investigated
Election officials are investigating about a dozen cases of apparent voter-registration fraud in El Paso County, Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink said Monday.
The cases involve voter-registration forms submitted to the election office that contain false information such as inaccurate driver's license numbers, Balink said. Investigators for the 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office are also participating in the inquiry.
One explanation could be political activists submitted the registration forms, pretending to be the people identified on the forms, Balink said.
Another routine trouble for the election office is organized voter registration drives where participants submit only the registrations of voters from a particular party. The activists sometimes throw out forms from people who sign up to be members of the opposing party, which is illegal, Balink said.
Similar schemes are common across the country, Balink told the Board of County Commissioners during a meeting Monday morning.
"The fraud is absolutely widespread," he said.
The Clerk and Recorder's Office hired three employees who began work today screening and investigating voter registrations.
About 354,000 people are registered to vote in El Paso County.
