By Brad Friedman on 1/4/2007, 10:38am PT  

To follow up on a story we covered last October when arrests were made in Orange County, California after it was discovered that "bounty hunters" were being paid per Republican voter registration form they gathered and had switched Democratic (and Green and even non-citizen) voter registration forms to Republican...LA Times is reporting today that sentencing for the first two of the 12 arrested has let the pair off with "time served" and three years probation:

A couple who admitted to their roles in an Orange County voter registration scandal each were sentenced Wednesday to three years' formal probation.

Jason Holly, 36, and Jessica Sundell, 23, were among 12 people arrested last fall and charged with signing up voters during a registration drive that resulted in dozens of Democrats fraudulently being signed up as Republicans.
...
The scandal, which surfaced nearly a year ago, embarrassed the county's Republican Party and underscored problems that can arise with signature-gathering and voter registration campaigns in which the workers are paid by the signature.

Campaign watchdogs have derisively called that practice a "bounty hunter" system.

One of the 12 defendants, Don Williams, remains a fugitive.

The others await court appearances and face up to three years in prison.

AP adds a couple of details on how the scam was perpetrated:

According to prosecutors, the recruiters went to shopping malls and campuses and asked residents to sign petitions for lower taxes or stricter sex offender laws, then tricked them into signing voter registration cards for the Republican party. The registration drive paid up to $10 per registrant.

Neither of the reports went into much detail on exactly who was behind the scheme, aside from statements from GOP spokesmen that they knew nothing about it. Naturally.

(Anybody spoken to Nathan Sproul lately?)

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Article Categories: California, Election 2006, Election Fraud, Nathan Sproul