Veteran Latino-rights advocate charged with voter fraud

Felony charges have been filed and an arrest warrant issued for a well-known Orange County political activist suspected of committing election and voter registration fraud, the California secretary of State's office announced Wednesday.

Investigators in the agency's election-fraud unit said Nativo V. Lopez, 57, of Santa Ana leased office space in Boyle Heights and registered to vote using that address although he lived with his family in Orange County. They also say Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Assn., cast an illegal ballot in L.A. in the 2008 presidential primary.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office, which is working with the secretary of State, charged Lopez with four felonies: fraudulent voter registration, fraudulent document filing, perjury and fraudulent voting. A warrant was issued for his arrest and bail was set at $10,000. The offenses carry penalties of up to three years in prison.

Lopez is a longtime Latino political-rights advocate in Orange County who served on the Santa Ana school board. Lopez has been a vocal advocate for Latino voting rights and supported immigrant amnesty and allowing undocumented workers to have driver's licenses. He could not immediately be reached for comment.

In 1997, the Orange County district attorney opened a criminal investigation into allegations that a group in which Lopez was a leader registered some clients to vote before they took the oath of citizenship. No criminal charges were brought, and Lopez demanded an apology from critics.

-- Dan Weikel and Shelby Grad

Comments

[Keith Lee]

My Vote is the ONLY little voice I have in how our government operates. Voter Fraud is one of the most egregious offenses there is against the American People. Voter Fraud should carry a mandatory prison sentence of 5 years unless you are an organizer, in which case 10 years wouldn't be enough for stealing my vote. BUT the Politicians really don’t want it fixed because it serves their purpose!

[Lukuj]

Gasp What a surprise! I wonder if ACORN tried to recruit this person, who would have fit right in. The big reason Democrats don't want illegals deported is so they can get their votes. It pains me to realize our elections are impacted by the votes of illegals, voters who vote because they are coerced into it my organizations like ACORN and have no idea who or what they are voting FOR, dead people, and multiple votes. Having lived in the Chicago area, I can tell you this is the legacy of the Dems there and in many Dem areas throughout the country. I know there is some of this in the Republican Party also, but to no where near the same extent.

[Born in Los Angeles]

I was born in LA, raised in Orange County.

As a 30-year Houston resident, I am enraged by my physician/attorney neighbors who – along with their child - skirt the local/Federal law by voting for Obama in multiple residences, at multiple times, and from multiple states. Three persons pulled the lever Obama lever as many as 20-plus times! These are professional Black people.

Their attorney daughter is a Chicago resident who travels – four states daily – on business expense. She is recorded as voting by mail in Houston. Do you ‘spose she also voted at her residence in Chicago, her Texas physician-father’s residence, her multiple state business connections?

It STINKS!

[harkin]

Yes, Ronald Reagan helped grant amnesty to over 5 million illegals. What supporters of continued amnesty fail to tell you was that Reagan's amnesty was a trade-off, Democrats also promised to secure borders and make sure everyone who wanted to immigrate did so legally, without cutting in line.

Now they come to us again saying let's grant amnesty to these 20 million plus who once again flauted our laws, but we also promise to secure the borders......LOL.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

[PeteR]

Gil Cedillo, Kevin de Leon and Antonio Villaraigosa need to appoint a blue ribbon panel consisting of Fabian Nunez, Art Torres and Richard Alarcon to initiate an investigation, headed by Hector Marroquin, Vicente Fox, and Thomas Saenz into this alleged voter fraud. The integrity of our voting system must be protected at all costs.

[Suzanne]

We have DEAD people who voted in the last election. Why would illegals voting be such a shock? The system is ruined.

[Mark]

Wow. Someone advocating illegal activities did something illegal. Who'd've ever have guessed that one.

[General J.D. Ripper]

How did this guy avoid being named to an Obama cabinet position?

[John]

This should be a 5-10 year mandatory sentence. Nothing hurts a democracy more than voters who aren't allowed to vote. This is today's democrat party. That is why they don't want to talk about Acorn, which Obama taught at originally. That is where he learned how to become a community agitator and show peole how to vote fradulently. If a non-partisan group looked into this you would probably see at least 100 bogus votes for democrats for every bogus republican vote. All these liberals want is power and to control you and they don't care how it happens. Investigate Acorn NOW!!!!

[Cal Ventura]

A poll was taken in california whether illegal immagration was a problem or not. 37% said yes...63% said no problemo.

[IraqWarVet]

Imagine that!! Illegal immigrant voter fraud??? That's impossible, everybody knows we do not have an illegal immigrant issue that is bankrupting hospitals and overwhelming our taxpayer paid welfare system....If it was such a big deal, I'm sure our government would be addressing the issue...And if there is an issue, surely it must be our fault for being prosperous.

[Chuck]

ACORN...can't be trusted & illegals can't be trusted & those who aid illegals can't be trusted.

Now if only our elected officials would wake up & realize that,allow local state & fed law enforcement to work together to deport these people we could really improve the economy.

Might even be able to save Kal i - forn- i - a !

[Geronimo]

3 years in the slammer for perjury and fraud.

Lopez is not the only one. Another immigrant I know of, this one from Indonesia, committed perjury and fraud when he became an attorney in Illinois under an alias identity. He went on to become a State Senator there too. I really hope he goes to jail.

In a free republic like ours the law is designed to protect the smallest minority, the individual. Lopez and his comrades seek superiority and special privileges for his group and, they seek it by illegal means. He's a cheat and a liar. In this country any individual can achieve great things if they apply themselves. The beauty of this country is that you don't have to hurt other people to excel. Lopez and his supporters on this page and out in the community are racists. One racist brought to justice is a good start.

[Sara123]

I am thankful he was caught cheating and corrupting our elections. That is a horrible crime - trying to detroy the root of our freedom - our elections!

[Anon]

Horrible.

[John]

How does that song go...? Nananah na....nananah na...eheheh...good bye... That goes for all of Kalifornia...legal or illegal. Don't worry, though. The entire nation will soon follow...Just think of it as Kalifornia setting another trend. The community destroyer hard at work...To quote an old favorite movie of mine (The Magnificent Seven), "Generosity...that was my first mistake..."

[Luke]

It's not surprising that yet another suite of blogs has run far afield of the content the article itself has launched. In comparison to the article itself, the posts that follow by far better reflect the seething, blood-boiling, brutally divisive nature of this issue that is tearing our communities apart here in the southland. Regardless of whatever agenda may or may not lie behind this and similar articles that announce these seemingly trifling yet fundamentally basic instances of personal lapse, you can expect readers taking any of the various sides of the topic to be trigger-happy. When any semblance of this vast issue rears its head, even the most type-shy and reticent will jump to arms in a rabid thrust to wedge his/her view into the lot, whether it is weighted on personal experience, or is completely baseless. I, myself, am confronted by this phenomenon as well, and there are certain nagging questions that just don't subside:
Does this question of power and resources awaken the inherently animalistic worries, agression, and associations in our minds that result from any percieved threat to the fundamental aspects of our nature and survival? Is it possible to be above the fray? Is this an issue that any single psyche can be neutral about, once aware of what's at stake? Do I focus my frustration on those who don't have a stance, whether out of ignorance, negligence or PC? Or do I find offense in the threading of mindless, regurgitated redundancies on any side? When the deliberately gradual, slight and overt manipulations of local power are gnawing away at any balance we try to maintain in our communities, and then mutate to take aim at national policy, how does my disappointed fury find a dignified voice that lends more reason and less frothiness at the mouth? How do I overcome the shame in anticipation that our republic of laws and sound constitution will go the way of Rome in a generation or two? What new sets of skills will our descendents have to acquire to survive in this environment of lawlessness with our southern californian policymaking? Could the enforcement of already-existing laws have avoided this war of attrition that is suffocating our responible citizens and flattening the wallet of the seventh largest economy on Earth? Is empathy getting in the way of level-headed legislation? Are populations of neighboring, lawless countries reaping the benefits and honor of the blood our fathers and grandfathers expelled and gurgled from their torsos and faces as they thought their last thought and gasped their last breath in the battles that afforded victory over baseness and tyranny? All the while, what efforts have these same populations expended to bring forth the same fruits in their own, precious homelands? Will the activism, agendas, lobbies, hate-filled rants and banners, deliberate population strategies to radically alter and reduce the cultural diversity and landscape of our city, and the raw bigotry of these groups be the only reward awaiting those who have been forced to finance nearly every aspect of the lives of these same groups, affording less resources to their own families? Are we immune to lessons in the annals of chronology? Is it true that we really do suffer from acute historical amnesia, and are doomed to reproduce the conditions that lead to our own demise? Well as long as we continue bathing in the warm soapy water of euphemising any fundamental issue that directly affects our lifestlye, while allowing others to re-invent our political vocabulary, we are laying the foundations for our own decline. Could we just step out of this enervating bathtub?!

[carrmakk]

ms:After Arizona's voter registration law was put into effect and allowed to go forward by the 9th circuit, 40,000 registrations were rejected by the AZ vo;ter rergistars. Also when Roberta Sanchez was elected to congress,1500 noncitizens voted and over 300 were ILLEGAL ALIENS. This was only in one small Orange County district.

[mach10]

This is simply a granule of the fraud going on compared to Acorn. GEt into Acorn and you have a wasp nest full of tiny socialist cells and taxpayer funds subverting the American process. All with the little activist in the WH looking and smiling upon the fraud.

Sen. Joe McCarthy was absolutely right . The subversion of America into communism was allowed to prosper by the left and the ACLU denigrating this type of investigation. We have way to much to lose to ignore it any longer..

[Scarlet]

Gee I wonder who he voted for and how many times he and others like him did the same???? Could it be.....oh, don't say it, ....you gotta know it wasn't for a conservative. And people wonder why California is such a disaster and has been for many years.

[John]

Hey, Luke. Give the philosophers a break and pick a side...Reading your post reminds me of Edgar Allen Poe...while I enjoy the challenge of expanding my vocabulary, I'm afraid your efforts are all wasted: most Federal Government phone numbers I call nowadays first say, "Press 1 for Spanish, 2 for English." This battle has been fought and lost. Nevertheless, a parting shot on my part: yesterday I canceled my Home Depot charge card...they asked me why, and I said, because your phone service offers for me to "press 2 for Spanish..." I said I only deal with English-speaking companies. My second reason was that all their junk is "Hecho en China". Don't worry, there'll be other battles, for better or worse...

[hughglass]

I think a latino vote stealer with his valuable life experiences will make better decisions than a white male. Thank you, Thank you very much.

[Pat]

Is it any wonder that our country took so long to condemn Iran in their recent elections. Ha, we're allowing the same fraud to be commited right under our noses. Support Voter ID! Screw the ACLU. Take our country back now.

[Wil]

It is almost shocking to me that somebody who committed a "liberal" fraud was arrested. It has seemed for some years that any liberal who commits a dishonest and/or illegal activity not only gets a complete pass, but is actually cheered as a hero in the media, and sometimes given awards, a book deal, and a lecture tour.

Also, anybody who even mentions a liberal fraud or illegal activity that has not been prosecuted, is viciously attacked. On the other hand, it seems that any conservative who commits even the slightest transgression, is mercilessly hounded to the ends of the earth.

Today, only white males or conservatives get arrested in the U.S., partially because George Bush invented evil, crime and fraud for all mankind, even retroactive 5000 years before his parents were born. If you doubt this, just ask any liberal.

I blame our high schools for this, for they graduate kids that are as ignorant as a bag of hammers. Then these kids enter our four-year liberal propaganda-brainwashing factories known as liberal arts colleges.

[taphonomic]

File suit to contest Obama's election because of this voter fraud!!!