Her point: Voter registration laws have gone to the dogs
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. -- Anyone reading through the King County voting rolls would find under M one Duncan M. MacDonald, an Australian Shepherd-terrier mix with shaggy paws and a glistening black nose.
Duncan's owner, Jane Balogh, a 66-year-old self-described "white-haired granny," is aghast that her dog remains on the rolls months after she informed authorities of her ruse.
Balogh says she wanted to expose the laxity of registration laws and show how easy it is for someone not entitled to vote to get a ballot and potentially skew an election.
Officials at King County, which includes Seattle and this suburb of 83,000, are so unhappy with Duncan's owner that they're set to charge her with voter fraud, a felony that carries a penalty of as much as a year in jail. A pretrial hearing has been set for July 11.
Meanwhile a popular conservative talk-radio program has hailed Balogh's actions as clever while the Seattle Times, in a recent editorial, condemned the ruse as having "crossed the line."
Balogh, who describes herself as shy and reclusive, has been startled by the attention but seems resolute in fighting to the end. She could have pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and been done with it, but on Friday she and her lawyer went to the King County Courthouse and told a judge she would rather face trial.
"Yes, I'm very nervous about all this," Balogh said in an interview. "But I wasn't trying to scam an election or do anything fraudulent. I wanted to make a point. I thought maybe they'd even say 'Thank you.' "
An Army veteran with two grown children, Balogh lives with Duncan, three other dogs and five cats in a quiet subdivision. Balogh says she's an inveterate letter writer who feels strongly about issues.
After voter-fraud allegations in the 2000 presidential election and in the 2004 gubernatorial race in her state, Balogh came up with the idea of registering one of her dogs as a voter.
In early 2006 she put her phone bill in Duncan's name and then used a phone-bill statement as identification to register him as a King County voter. As part of the process, she signed the form declaring Duncan was a legitimate voter -- which is at the heart of the case against her.
In three subsequent elections, Balogh sent in absentee ballots in Duncan's name. She wrote "VOID" on the ballots and signed the envelopes with a paw print.
At the same time she was sending in Duncan's ballots, she was writing letters to legislators describing her trick and pleading for them to "fix the system."
The votes, elections officials conceded, could have counted had she not blown the whistle on herself. Eventually she got a call from an elections worker, and shortly after received a visit from a King County detective.
Under the initial misdemeanor charge, making false statements to a public official, Balogh's penalty would have been 10 hours of community service and a $250 fine. She agreed at first but changed her mind.
