12/02/07      Illegal Voters on rolls
Gherig Saldaņa

The state auditor's findings reported by Christine DeLoma in Thousands of Possible Dead, Felons on Voter Rolls (DallasBlog.com, 11/30/07) came as no surprise to me.

Ten or so years ago, I served as a poll watcher for a state representative election in West Dallas.  On that day, I challenged over 80 voters who attempted to vote without a voter registration card, driver license or state issued identification.

These individuals were bused to our polling site by some well known local political operatives and hustled in to cast their vote.  Their only problem was I challenged the intended vote of these individuals due to their lack of proper identification. As soon as I filled out the paperwork to challenge these votes, which also requires the signature of the election judge, all of those challenged prospective voters were encouraged by the election judge to not vote and they did not vote.

On that day, the average votes cast in that type of election was very low compared to previous state representative elections held at that polling site.  On that day, I was a poll watcher for a very well known former state representative. And, guess what, someone called the Dallas County Sheriff that day charging me with voter suppression attempting to oust me from from that polling site.  It did not work.

By the end of the day, I successfully challenged approximately 87 voters who were attempting to vote under similar circumstances. That was over 10 years ago.

So, would this be voter suppression? I think not.

Gherig Saldaņa