Jesse Marx

The Desert Sun

Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said a preliminary investigation shows that some voters' political affiliation had been changed online without their knowledge.

Both before and after the June 7 election, dozens of people came forward with complaints, some of which may have been the result of confusion over the primary process, according to county officials.

In order to re-register online, the California Secretary of State’s system requires information from a driver’s license or another official ID, a date of birth, and the last four digits of one’s social security number. However, the website does not track IP addresses, meaning it’s not immediately clear to the DA’s Office who might have been responsible for the changes.

“We’ve gone cold very quickly,” Hestrin said, noting there are no suspects at this time. Without further information, he added, “I don’t see this turning into a prosecution.”

An assistant chief DA began looking into dozens of reports after Riverside County Republican Party chairman Scott Mann and other party leaders brought to it his and the Registrar of Voters' attention. Mann said he’s received “well over 35 complaints" and countless phone calls tied not just to affiliation but address, age, ethnicity and date of birth.

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One such allegation came from Nathan Miller, a Riverside County Community College trustee, who thought it weird when his wife’s sample ballot arrived in the mail and his didn’t. He later checked his registration online and discovered that, though a Republican operative, he was listed as a Democrat.

He changed it back, but as a member of the 60th Assembly District Central Committee wanted the entire transaction erased. His concern going forward is that, because the state doesn’t keep a record of which computers accessed which accounts, someone might still tamper with his personal information.

“Could they go back in and change it again?” he asked.

Miller suspects that someone obtained his information through the Department of Motor Vehicles. Weeks ago, Hestrin speculated about a possible hack, but insisted Wednesday that there was no immediate evidence of a data breach.

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Over on the Democratic side, organizer Elle Kurpiewski said as many as a dozen people complained before the primary about receiving the wrong sample ballot, which caused them to check their status and discover a similar change in affiliation. "Rather than argue or debate it, we just re-registered them,” she said.

Riverside County spokesman Ray Smith said in an email that voters contact the registrar’s office every year with these kinds of complaints, but “the reported changes turned out largely to be incorrect.”

He cited one instance in which a person changed their affiliation in 1996 and voted in multiple elections before raising the complaint with the county. On two other occasions, the county turned over improper registration changes to the state for further investigation.

The Secretary of State’s Office sent The Desert Sun a statement Wednesday evening, saying it takes seriously the charges and, in such cases, works with county election officials to identify how the changes occurred. But because a spokesman did not respond to specific questions, it's unclear whether other counties have received similar complaints, whether the state has any plans to begin tracking IP addresses, and who might have an interest in altering another person's affiliation.

"Little strange," Hestrin said. "Certainly these are irregularities."

Jesse Marx is The Desert Sun political reporter. Reach him at jesse.marx@desertsun.com or @marxjesse on Twitter.