Miller: Claims of voter fraud are false

LAS VEGAS - Republican goons staring down minority voters at polling sites. Teachers buying Democrats with Starbucks gift cards. Election workers doctoring records. The Senate majority leader bribing college students with free pizza.

Allegations of dirty politics are being flung from both sides in the final days of Nevada's U.S. Senate race between incumbent Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Sharron Angle.

So far, the complaints of voter fraud or voter intimidation add up to little more than unsubstantiated rumors.

Secretary of State Ross Miller said Wednesday there is no evidence to support recent claims of massive voter fraud.

Miller said there have been no formal complaints of voter or election law violations despite some media accounts and e-mail chains.

Those pushing the allegations say voting machines in Clark County and elsewhere have been rigged to cast ballots for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., even if the voter marks for Republican Sharron Angle or some other candidate.

Miller said his office created the Election Integrity Task Force in 2008 to investigate and stop any attempt at election fraud.

"I will not tolerate any attempt by an individual, organization or campaign to deny any Nevadan the right to freely cast their vote in a safe, secure and private manner," he said. "But neither will I stand by and allow the public's confidence in the electoral system to be undermined by unsubstantiated rumors and allegations."

Miller urged anyone with actual knowledge of any election law violation to immediately report it to his office.

His Elections Deputy Matt Griffin said not only has no evidence been presented or any formal complaints filed to back up the claims but no one he is aware of has reported a problem in voting for their U.S. Senate choice to any poll worker.

Angle's campaign claimed Reid and Democratic union backers are illegally buying votes with free food and Starbucks gift cards. A fundraising plea e-mailed Monday to supporters claimed that Miller, a Democrat running for re-election, has been helping Reid.

"What Harry Reid is doing is clearly illegal," Angle campaign attorney Cleta Mitchell wrote in the e-mail that urged supporters to send $80,000.

Mitchell told The Associated Press that the campaign doesn't have direct evidence of the alleged fraud.

"We have a system with a hot line that people can call, and we get lots of reports all day, every day, from polling places, as well as elsewhere, and people call the hot line and tell us things they've seen and heard," Mitchell wrote in an e-mail to the AP.

Lynn Warne, president of the Nevada State Education Association, denied claims that the union was trading gift cards for votes. "We don't have money to pay for a bunch of Starbucks cards," she said.

Reid's campaign offered free pizza slices at a rally at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, recently.

Miller said the free food doesn't constitute a bribe because supporters were not told they could only take a slice if they voted for Reid.

Meanwhile, Reid's campaign also released thin claims that Angle supporters are intimidating voters at the poll.

"Angle's goons are ... breaking laws with their intimidation tactics at the polling places, handing out literature to potential voters that discourages them from participating and taking pictures of voters as they enter polling places," spokesman Kelly Steele wrote in an e-mail to reporters.

The GOP's complaint leaned on public documents and contained the most concrete allegations so far. But the problems cited were minor.

Nevada Republican Party legal counsel David O'Mara claimed that daily polling logs in Clark and Washoe counties showed the number of ballots cast was larger than the number of voters who signed the election registers in a handful of instances.

"These troubling discrepancies suggest that these voting machines may have recorded extra votes erroneously, or that people were allowed to cast votes without signing up (thereby potentially allowing them to cast multiple ballots)," O'Mara wrote.

Miller said tired volunteers likely flubbed a few numbers while adding and subtracting the poll results. The logs are separate from official vote counts.

Volunteers for Barack Obama had complained of similar errors during the tense 2008 presidential election, Miller said. An investigation concluded fraud had not occurred.

Larry Lomax, Clark County registrar of voters, said both sides have sent poll watchers to observe voters. Democrats have a 13,000-vote lead in Clark County.

Lomax said the rumors have created a feeding frenzy that is undermining voters' confidence in the system.

"Fraud is in the air," Lomax said.