Singing Those Ballot Box Blues

As a neighborhood leader in Santa Ana, I helped organize a school board candidates forum last year, sponsored by the neighborhood associations, which attracted all the candidates save for one. Nativo V. Lopez had better things to do.

As it turned out, perhaps he felt that he already had the election in the bag. But at what price? If he was willing to sacrifice the citizenship of those who came to him for help, just to win office, then he has much to apologize for.

Now, the former students of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional face deportation at worst, and at best an uncertain future. Assemblyman Curt Pringle is absolutely right in asking that authorities shift their focus from those who may have registered to vote prematurely to those who told them it was all right to do so (Column Right, April 22).

As we saw in the recent elections in Los Angeles, most people just aren’t voting anymore. That means that the votes that are cast must be valid, or else our entire system of government is at risk. We can no longer be considered a democracy when elections can be rigged at will by those whose personal agendas do not consider the public good.

Moreover, I am deeply offended by Lopez’s attempts to turn all of this into a racial battle. How dare he assume [that] position, while at the same time preying on the hopes and dreams of ostensibly his own people? Those who truly care about the Latino community understand that organizations like Hermandad and people like Lopez must be scrutinized when they leave so many innocent victims in their wake.

It is our responsibility to find out what really happened and to punish with the full force of the law those individuals who ran roughshod over our electoral process and over those who trusted them.

ART PEDROZA Jr.

Hispanic Outreach Director

Republican Party of O.C.

Santa Ana

* I have seen lots of letters on the voter registration fraud controversy, the latest involving Curt Pringle. It’s an inexcusable dereliction on the part of election overseers that we ever got into this mess in the first place.

There are ways to ensure positive identification and therefore the validity of a vote, but all it takes is loud accusations of discrimination toward some group or another to make people abandon common sense.

I’ve lived in Orange County for over 30 years, and have been a registered voter for most of that time. A few years ago, we bought another home and moved a few miles away. Presidential elections were coming up, and I wondered why I hadn’t gotten a sample ballot. There were also some hotly contested elections in our new community, which has less than 1,500 eligible voters, so my vote would would count more here than it ever had before.

I drove to the election office on Grand Street in Santa Ana about five days before the election and could not believe what they told me. Since I had not informed them of the change of address at least 31 days before the election, I could not vote! This astounding disenfranchisement had no way around it. Well, there was actually. I probably could have gone to a polling place in the old neighborhood and voted in the national elections and for people not in my current district, but there’s a hollow feeling about cheating in this particular civic exercise.

It makes as much sense as the current inability to screen out noncitizens. Namely, none at all.

ROBERT C. HUNT

Modjeska Canyon

* Notwithstanding W.M. Lawson’s assertions about what the Constitution “states exactly” (Letters, April 27), it does not mandate “one flag” or “one language.”

Nor does it promote the kind of enforced homogeneity of political views that the writer seems to endorse. It does, however, protect free speech, which is what the Latinos demonstrating outside the Santa Ana courthouse were exercising. How American of them.

Lawson does make two legitimate points. One is that when we feel the anger of another group that defines itself in opposition to us, we may find it “scary” or at least alienating.

The other is that being an American is, of course, much more than simply waving Old Glory. Many of us in the Latino community have been trying to tell that to Republican politicians in Orange County for years.

MANUEL GARCIA y GRIEGO

Irvine

* Thank you for your ongoing expose of the frivolous and mean-spirited challenge by Robert K. Dornan to the election of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove).

The Republican leadership, led by Assemblyman Curt Pringle, has used Hermandad Mexicana Nacional as whipping boy to stir up anti-immigrant and anti-Latino sentiments. I was not surprised that Republicans refused to allow Hermandad a chance to defend itself at hearings in Santa Ana. Fair-minded people should be concerned with these kangaroo court proceedings.

We should not lose sight of what is really going on. Dornan and his cronies are on a fishing expedition, making totally unsubstantiated charges and then granting themselves unprecedented powers to build their case. This is McCarthyism at its best.

Nativo V. Lopez is an eloquent and effective spokesman for his cause--just the sort of man Republican bluebloods love to hate.

Hermandad is a self-help organization that conducts English and citizenship classes, provides job counseling, food assistance and other services to help our newest Americans adapt to their new home--America. Any funding invested by the taxpayers to assist these efforts is money well spent.

J. COLON

Santa Ana