Grand jury indicts man in voter-registration fraud

An East Side man is accused of filing false voter registrations and requests for absentee ballots for himself and seven others from the same address, Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said today.

Antonio Alvande, 36, of 532 S. James Rd. was indicted yesterday on 24 counts charging him with 14 counts of false registration and 10 counts of absentee-ballot fraud. He was arrested late yesterday after deputies used a Taser to subdue him. He is expected to appear in court Friday.

In a briefing this morning, O'Brien said the Franklin County Board of Elections "red-flagged" multiple forms before the Nov. 4 election because they were from the same E. Broad Street address. That address is actually a retail strip mall that includes a box-shipping store where Alvande had rented a post-office box.

A handwriting analyst confirmed that all were written and signed by Alvande, who was not registered and did not vote in the general election, O'Brien said. Deputies also learned that Arizona had an outstanding warrant for his arrest for probation violation out of a theft case.

"This case is being prosecuted because of the signatures," O'Brien said. "Some people in this state don't think they are necessary" an apparent reference to statements made by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

"Anyone who thinks that a signature is not necessary to detect or prosecute voter fraud is not living in the real world."

O'Brien told the Board of Elections to discard about 1,000 provisional ballots that contained no signature, saying a signature is required by voters under Ohio law. Brunner has opined that each elections board has the duty to fully identify voters before letting them cast votes. About 27,000 provisional ballots are now the subject of a federal court case.

In this case, false, forged and fictitious forms were filed by Alvande, who used aliases for himself, two names of people he met through a newspaper ad, and names of people who don't exist. All the forms contained a similar signature and address, but no completed ballots were received and therefore were not counted, O'Brien said.

The prosecutor would not say what, if anything, Alvande had to say when arrested.

"There is no indication he was associated with ACORN or any political party. There were no ill-cast votes (received)," O'Brien said.