L.A Voter Fraud Alleged Against Both Candidates For City Council Seat

Voter fraud is being investigated in the Los Angeles County community known as Little Armenia, and locla prosecutors are now investigating the alleged misconduct of one candidate's campaign for a seat on the City Council.

May 21st is the date for the election of Los Angeles's mayor, and as such a City Council seat has been given up by mayoral hopeful Eric Garcetti. The City Council is holding an election to see who will replace him, and both candidates are now coming under attack for voter fraud.

A complaint was sent to L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey's office from the campaign of John Choi that claims that people representing his opponent, Mitch O'Farrell, went door-to-door in Little Armenia and helped residents fill out their ballots under the belief that they were voting for local favorite Sam Kbushyan.

The only problem is, Kbushyan is no longer running as he came in third in the initial balloting and therefore cannot participate in the runoff that is now between Choi and O'Farrell. Kbushyan has since offered his support for O'Farrell but it is claimed that the people in Little Armenia were not made aware of the exact details of this.

The O'Farrell campaign has already swiftly denied these claims, stating that rather than being at fault, it is they who are the victims. They believe that it is actually John Choi's workers who are at fault. "These are Choi people who are doing this," O'Farrell spokeswoman Renee Nahum said.

O'Farrell's camp said that they will be filing a complaint as well. They have stated that they have numerous testimony from people in Little Armenia who say that Choi's campaign workers came to their door and represented themselves as working for Kbushyan.

The matter has been complicated by the fact that many of these people do not speak English and have a poor understanding of the governmental process. The workers who would interact with them would often speak Armenian, though there has also been reports of campaign workers simply handing cards that say "Choi" and "99" (for his ballot number) while claiming that Kbushyan supported him.

Regardless of the final verdict, it is very possible that both candidates have engaged in misconduct during the election. It is against the law for campaign workers to return ballots on behalf of voters, and so far there has been allegations that both parties engaged in this act.