Panel Orders INS to Deliver List Today

The Congressional Oversight Committee has given the Immigration and Naturalization Service until today to provide it with a written list of the names of 4,023 people who live in the 46th Congressional District and who may have registered to vote before becoming citizens, a congressional spokesman said Tuesday.

The INS created an electronic list at the behest of the committee by matching names and birth dates of people on its computer databases with a computer tape of Orange County registered voters.

The committee is looking into a challenge filed by Republican Robert K. Dornan to the election of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove). Sanchez defeated Dornan by 984 votes, but he has blamed his loss on voting by noncitizens and other election irregularities.

In addition to those identified in the Sanchez district, the INS record check found 19,023 “matches” countywide by comparing the surname, first name and date of birth of people in INS and voter registration files, according to a letter from INS Commissioner Doris Meissner to Committee Chairman Bill Thomas.

In her June 13 letter, Meissner emphasized the tentative nature of such “matches” and the susceptibility to error. In particular, she said, a native-born American who is registered to vote could share the name and birth date with a “legal resident alien,” and that would produce a match.

“Only further field investigation would reveal that California’s records and the INS records pertain to two different individuals,” she wrote, adding that the “4,023 names does not represent the number of illegal voters or registrants in the 46th District.”.

A spokesman for the House Oversight Committee, which is looking into the election challenge, said it wants its own written list “so we can take whatever steps are necessary” to further investigate the election.

INS officials in Los Angeles and elsewhere are hand-checking the files of all the matches to determine if the file contains evidence of naturalization date, and whether any middle name or most recent address matches those contained in the registration records, the letter said.