Local Elections : 2 Accused of Voter Registration Fraud : Crime: The workers hired by a Brooks Firestone campaign consultant are suspected of collecting the names of people off tombstones.

Accused of submitting dead people’s names as newly registered Republican voters, two workers hired by a Brooks Firestone Assembly campaign consultant were arrested Thursday and charged with election fraud, Ventura County’s top prosecutor said.

The two workers, paid by a Firestone consultant for each completed registration card, apparently collected names off tombstones and turned them in as legitimate, prosecutors and Firestone’s campaign manager said.

Although Firestone’s campaign workers submitted the forms to county election officials, Firestone said neither he nor his campaign staff knew the registration cards were fakes.

“We had no intention of engaging in fraudulent registration whatsoever,” Firestone said. “It wouldn’t do us any good, because dead people don’t vote.”

Angela Robinson-Adams of Ventura and Lisa Marie Krueger of Oxnard turned in 20 of the fraudulent cards, Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said in a statement.

John Cuneo, a former Ventura Star Free-Press reporter, said he was in charge of hiring Robinson-Adams and Krueger along with about 50 others. Cuneo works for Michael Long, a Santa Barbara political consultant who is running the registration drive to sign up new Republicans.

Long said his administrative costs were shared by Firestone, Republican state Senate candidate Steve MacElvaine of San Luis Obispo, Republican congressional candidate Andrea Seastrand of San Luis Obispo and the Santa Barbara County Lincoln Club.

Cuneo said he instructed the employees to canvass Ventura County movie theaters, supermarkets and shopping malls to register Republican voters. He said he also warned all the workers against submitting registration cards with fictitious names.

Robinson-Adams and Krueger worked for about two weeks and turned in between 100 and 150 cards each, he said. The two were paid about $3 per card.

Cuneo said he reviewed all of the forms before handing them over to Firestone’s campaign office, but said he had no way of telling the cards were fakes.

Firestone’s campaign manager then submitted the registration cards to county officials and gave receipts to the California Republican Party so that employees could be paid. The state party offers the “bounty” for each newly registered Republican.

Long said his firm has registered 5,200 new Republicans as part of this year’s registration drive for GOP candidates.

“This is something that is commonly done as part of a campaign effort,” Long said. “The more Republican voters you have out there, the more votes you’re going to get.”

County officials said that paying to register voters is an invitation to fraud.

“You’re just asking for trouble,” said Bruce Bradley, the county’s elections chief. “It has always been my contention that any time you pay to register people you’re going to have fraud.”

Firestone said he did not want to use paid registration workers, but did so as a defensive move to match the registration efforts of the Democrats.

Democratic Party officials said they favor the use of volunteers to register voters to avoid the potential for impropriety.

“Ninety-nine percent of our registration drives are done purely by volunteers,” said Hank Starr, chairman of the Ventura County Democratic Central Committee. “The Republicans have money and we have people.”

But Republican Party officials said that in recent years both parties have relied more heavily on paid employees.

“It’s not like it was 25 years ago when I first got involved,” said Peggy Sadler, secretary of the Republican Central Committee. “It’s much more difficult to get the volunteers that you need to do a registration drive.”

Not only has it become difficult to find volunteers, Cuneo said, the paid workers have had a difficult time signing up new voters.

“There was a hell of a lot of voter apathy out there,” Cuneo said. “It was tough to get people to sign up.”

Conviction on a charge of fraudulent registration of voters carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison.