Lawmakers Demand Action After CBS2 Exposes Deceased Voters Somehow Casting Ballots Across LA County
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — State lawmakers are demanding action after a CBS2 investigation uncovered hundreds of deceased voters somehow casting ballots across Los Angeles County.
The move comes a week after David Goldstein, investigative reporter for CBS2 and KCAL9, uncovered 265 dead voters in Southern California, of which 215 were in LA County; people like Julita Abutin, who died in 2006.
But after the investigation, the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder now confirms someone fraudulently used a mail-in ballot to cast a vote in Abutin's name in 2014 and 2012.
Now, state senators like Joel Anderson (R-Alpine) and Ben Allen (D- Santa Monica) are calling on Secretary of State Alex Padilla to launch a voter fraud investigation.
"Ultimately, voter integrity matters and that's why we're focused so closely on getting it done and getting it done quickly before Tuesday," said Anderson.
The senators are asking that the news station turn over the names it uncovered.
But CBS2/KCAL9 went one step further, providing them with how the station made the discovery, by matching voting records from the Secretary of State's office with death records from the Social Security Administration.
It's unknown if Padilla's office is trying to replicate the findings.
"They now know the issue. They're doing some investigation, from my understanding, and hopefully they'll get to the bottom of it," said Allen.
Part of the problem is that California is the only state that is non-compliant with a 14-year-old federal law that was supposed to standardize voting records statewide and prevent so-called "dead voters."
"I have no doubt that part of the problem that you're running into in your story has to do with this lack of, with the fact that we've been out of compliance and that our computer system has been lousy," Allen said.
Padilla has promised to have a new computer system fully online sometime this year but not in time for Tuesday's primary.
