According to numbers posted on the Registrar of Voters Web site this morning, registered Democratics now exceed registered Republicans in San Bernardino County.

The county has long been a Republican stronghold, but political experts credit enthusiasm for the upcoming election for the recent increase.

The Democrats' registration efforts seemed to be stymied just weeks ago when a voter fraud scandal implicating a Republican political campaign company unravelled in the county. The head of Young Political Majors was arrested and charged with two felonies slightly more than a week ago.

Following our stories on purported voter fraud at Wal-Marts across San Bernardino County, we've received a few phone calls from angry readers saying that the reports of voter fraud are meaningless because it doesn't matter whether you're registered as a Democrat or Republican.

Well, it does matter for a number of reasons. One of the biggest, is that voter registration allows you to vote in the primaries. Voter affiliation also determines how boundaries are drawn in redistricting efforts, which ultimately decide who gets elected to the state Legislature. It's a little something called gerrymandering. And voter registration helps each party - whether it's the Democrats, Republicans or Green Party - determine where their voter base is weakest so they can focus on specific areas for get-out-the-vote campaigns.

This blog has been chronicling how a number of San Bernardino County voters believe they were duped into being registered as Republicans. The group accused of voter fraud, Young Political Majors, apparently has run into some trouble elsewhere in the state, the Ventura County Star reported yesterday. The story is below.

Web site: http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/sep/28/voter-registration-effort-criticized/

Voter registration effort criticized

Democrats say Republicans are applying force

Charges that a Republican Party voter registration effort is illegally forcing voters to choose the GOP label were leveled by Democratic Party activists Friday, and police were called to shopping centers in Ventura and Oxnard to keep the peace, officials said.

A spokesman for the state Republican Party said the effort is above-board, and he accused Democrats of repeating a pattern from other states of making false accusations against the group, Young Political Majors, to get sympathetic headlines from allegations that never result in formal charges.

Accusations of people being approached by Young Political Majors employees taking a survey or gathering petitions on child sex abusers but then getting registered against their will as Republicans, were filed with the Ventura County District Attorney's Office late Friday afternoon.

"We'll review the matter in conjunction with the elections officials in Ventura County," said Assistant District Attorney Jeff Bennett.

'Really, really upset'

Paid employees of Young Political Majors were accosted outside the Oxnard Wal-Mart store over their party recruitment efforts Thursday and Friday, with a minor scuffle breaking out at one point, said an Oxnard police official.

A shouting match broke out Friday afternoon between the Republicans and activists with Vote Blue, a Democratic-backed group, at the Target store on Main Street in Ventura.

Among the charges leveled by Vote Blue are complaints by at least two people that they were asked to support the petition, only to eventually get postcards from the Ventura County Elections Division confirming they had become card-carrying members of the GOP.

"I was really, really upset," said Ventura resident Tanya Sliger, 37, a medical assistant who said she answered her door to find a Young Political Majors employee with a petition last summer.

"A girl came knocking and told me she was doing a poll for the Republican Party, and I told her over and over I was a Democrat," Sliger said. "I was told I was answering a poll, but she was very sneaky, and I could tell something was up."

Thousand Oaks college student Armon Anderson, 18, said he was approached by a person to sign a petition while studying at Moorpark College. "It was like brainwashing," he said, "and he wouldn't let us register as anything other than a Republican."

Similar allegations

State Democratic spokesman Bob Mulholland said people were told they can sign the anti-child-molester petition only if they switch allegiance to the Republican Party. Even if that is legal, he said, "they absolutely cannot get away with changing party registrations."

But his counterpart for the state GOP, Hector Barajas, said similar allegations have been slung at Young Political Majors in other states and California counties, "and there are never any charges, because there are never any violations. It's easy to make the charge when there is nothing there."

Democrats working for Vote Blue have been collecting evidence and affidavits, said organizer Helen Conly. She said they presented sworn statements from people who had their affiliations changed or who were told they could not sign their names on petitions to oppose child sexual abuse unless they changed their party affiliations.

Barajas said Young Political Majors workers clearly identify themselves as being with the GOP and take at least three steps to make sure that only Republicans are marked down as such.

Young Political Majors owner Mark Jacoby, who has conducted similar registration drives in Florida, Arizona and other states, said his firm will not accept a voter registration form from an employee unless it is accompanied by a signed affidavit on a form bordered with Republican elephants, indicating that the voter understands he or she has chosen the GOP without tricks or pressure.

Political activity allowed

Barajas said Democratic bloggers are following the organizers and urging Democrats to confront the registration drive workers and to demand that store managers oust the Young Political Majors workers from shopping centers.

The state constitution allows political activity at private shopping centers so long as commerce is not affected.

A spokeswoman for the California Secretary of State said her office has a toll-free phone number for people who suspect their party affiliations were changed. It is 800-345-VOTE.

Another caller, John Warder, a Devore resident, says he signed a petition at the Wal-Mart on Hallmark Parkway in San Bernardino and later found out he had been registered as a Republican.

The Republican registration prevented him from voting in the Primary.

"I was very upset about it," he said. "Then I went to vote and I couldn't vote."

Note: Although the voter fraud allegations originated from the San Bernardino County Democratic Party, the sources quoted in news stories have not been supplied by the county Democrats. In numerous instances, residents called the paper when the first articles about the suspected voter fraud and district attorney's office investigation were published.

We just received another call reporting another incident that occurred in San Bernardino.

We've received a number of calls from people who say they were unknowingly registered as Republicans after signing what they believed was a petition to increase prison time for child molesters. The incidents being reported occurred in Chino, Chino Hills, Fontana, Rialto, San Bernardino and Highland, according to the county Democratic Party.

Click here to read today's latest story: http://www.sbsun.com/sanbernardino/ci_10559994

If you are concerned you were a victim of the voter fraud scheme, there are two government agencies you should call:

• The San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters, 909-387-8300, to check how you are registered and to report voter fraud.
• The California Secretary of State, (800) 345-8683, a voter fraud hotline to report instances of voter fraud.

Today's story: http://www.sbsun.com/sanbernardino/ci_10559994

A San Bernardino resident just called in to say that he and his wife signed petitions at Wal-Marts in San Bernardino and Highland. One of the petitions they believed they were signing was to put tracking devices on child molesters.

"I've got two little girls," the resident said about what convinced him to sign the petition. "Anything about keeping child molesters in prison we're definitely going to sign."

The Sun has received a number of reports from residents in San Bernardino County who suspect they may have been victims of voter fraud.

The county Democratic Party says the voter registration scheme was conducted at Wal-Marts in Chino, Chino Hills, Fontana, Rialto and San Bernardino.

UPDATE: Reached yesterday by phone, Kate Folmar, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Debra Bowen, had this to say:

As a voter fraud scandal continues to unravel in San Bernardino County, we've received a few calls from people who say they were unknowingly registered as Republicans after signing what they believed was a petition to increase prison time for child molesters.

Click here to read today's latest story: http://www.sbsun.com/sanbernardino/ci_10559994

If you are concerned you were a victim of the voter fraud scheme, there are two government agencies you should call:

• The San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters, 909-387-8300, to check how you are registered and to report voter fraud.
• The California Secretary of State, (800) 345-8683, a voter fraud hotline to report instances of voter fraud.

The alleged voter fraud scam with the district attorney is investigating occurred at Wal-Marts in Chino, Chino Hills, Fontana, Rialto and San Bernardino, according to the Democratic Party. 

Over the past few months, it looked like a sure thing that the San Bernardino County Democrats were going to turn our red county blue. Not so fast. A dramatic surge in Republican voter registration this month has upset that trend.

As of a couple weeks ago, the Dems were behind the GOP by only a few hundred registered voters. But in the latest numbers released by the county Registrar of Voters, the small divide has widened. Currently, there are 307,132 registered Republicans compared to 303,531 registered Democrats in the county. Of course, the recent allegations of Republcan voter fraud might change those numbers further.

The county Democratic Party had planned on clebrating turning the county blue in October. But the party has had to change its plans. Now the Democrats will just be celebrating a "bluer" county, and not a takeover.

The party will be held 4-11 p.m., Oct. 11 at Bob Molina Memorial Park behind the Brotherhood of Teamsters local #63 at 379 West Valley Boulevard in Rialto.

Tickets for the celebration are available for a contribution of $40 per person, and can be ordered on the County Party's website at www.SanBernardinoDemocrats.org.

Among those attending will be Lt. Gov. John Garamendi and California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres.

You can check out the latest voter registration numbers by clicking here: http://www.sbcounty.gov/rov/general_info/distsummary.pdf.