| | Private investigators said recruited to aid voter caging
 Is the Republican National Committee hiring private investigators to help Republican lawyers deny contest voters?
A Monday report from the New Mexico Independent asserts that Investigator David O’Niell contacted the paper after being approached by a recruiter with the California firm SETEC Investigations, Todd Stefan. He expressed concerns that the RNC would be employing the PI's to work closely with their legal team to 'cage' voters at the polls on election day.
O’Niell told the paper he believes he was contacted because his Web site touts his more than 20 years of experience as a federal law enforcement agent.
In order to 'cage' a voter -- historically a Republican tactic -- an attorney must challenge the ballot in person at the polls and provide some sort of evidence that the voter is not properly registered. Typically, this scheme employs returned mail, lists of foreclosures, and other government databases.
A private investigator could be particularly helpful to partisan lawyers seeking to challenge voters, as they would have access to and knowledge of specific databases which may contain information that could disqualify a ballot.
Stefan, the recruiter, denied any affiliation with the RNC, but added: "I don’t fully know who’s involved. This is something that, I’ll be honest, I’m a little bit skittish about."
"We are very troubled to hear this information and we think it raises serious questions about programs that the RNC is running," said Jenny Backus, a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign.
The RNC did not comment on the report.
“We wouldn’t even take that case if they asked us,” one private investigator quoted by the paper said. “There’s a wide spectrum of stuff that investigators can do, but that’s nothing we would do. Whoever gets elected gets elected."
Vote challengers from both party are allowed to contest a voter's status in many areas of the United States.
"In New Mexico, challengers may challenge voters if they are not legally registered, their names are on the 'purged' list, they are listed as having received absentee ballots or if they are not 'qualified' electors," the Independent notes. "A qualified elector is someone who is not eligible to vote in New Mexico because, for example, he or she is not a U.S. citizen."
The paper's full report is available here.
Word of more investigators being recruited for voter caging is just another development in a story the Independent has been hot on the trail of ever since receiving a report of an investigator intimidating an elderly female voter.
In a previous report, GOP attorney Pat Rogers refused to confirm or deny visits with private investigator Al Romero. Previously, the GOP had cited 10 examples of voters who are ineligible to cast ballots; a move which Project Vote -- an organization that works with ACORN -- loudly condemned as false, and asserted the aforementioned voters are indeed eligible.
Two of the 10 New Mexico voters were visited by Al Romero, according to the Independent.
Guadalupe Bojorquez, a 67-year-old woman, was reportedly intimidated by Romero outside her home in Albuquerque. After putting Romero on the phone with her son, and pressing him on who he works for, "He told me he worked for Pat Rogers," said Bojorquez.
Rogers is not a newcomer to playing hardball with democracy. In 2004 and 2006, he made claims of voter fraud, and was cited in a Department of Justice report (PDF link) as a complainant against former US Attorney David Iglesias, a central figure in the 'Attorneygate' scandal that brought down ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Iglesias has called the GOP's anti-fraud efforts a "scare tactic."
When a writer with the Independent called Romero, the private investigator, he was said to be unavailable.
"When I asked 'With whom am I speaking?' he said, 'Hello? Hello? Hello?' about five times and then hung up," claims the report.
"I called back and got what sounded like the exact same voice saying, 'You have reached the voicemail of Alfredo Romero.'"
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