Investigator believes woman was testing the system by trying to vote twice

Roxanne Rubin was upset poll workers did not check her ID, so she tried to vote twice to prove a point, according to the Nevada secretary of state’s office.

Rubin, 56, was arrested Friday by the state’s multijurisdictional Elections Integrity Task Force and charged with trying to vote more than once in the same election, a felony.

When reached Monday, Rubin said she wants to share her side of the story.

"I can’t talk, and I’m dying to," Rubin said. "I’m talkative by nature."

In a sworn affidavit, criminal investigator Shelley Neiman wrote that Rubin was "willing to risk the penalty in order to expose what she perceived as a weakness in the voting process" and that Rubin "was unhappy with the process; specifically in that her identification was not checked."

Neiman wrote that Rubin "wanted to make a point" by testing the system and trying to cast another vote.

The secretary of state said Rubin, a registered Republican, voted last week at the Anthem Community Center in Henderson. About 30 minutes later, she is alleged to have appeared at a Las Vegas polling station at 9725 S. Eastern Ave., and attempted to vote a second time. A records search showed she had already voted, but Rubin insisted she had not and should be allowed to cast a ballot. Poll workers did not allow it.

According to the affidavit, a poll worker overheard Rubin say to a man, "I signed my name differently, and they did not ask for ID."

The Nevada attorney general filed the criminal complaint Friday in Las Vegas Justice Court.

According to the secretary of state’s website, the election task force was created in 2008 to address voter fraud or intimidation during the registration and voting processes.

According to state law, when voters register, they provide their information, including a Nevada driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number if they don’t have a license, said Larry Lomax, Clark County’s registrar of voters. That information is compared with the DMV and Social Security records. If it matches, voters are not asked for ID when they vote, Lomax said.

Poll workers can ask for ID when a signature does not match.

"We emphasize in our training a lot to be sure you look at the signature," Lomax said. "When it’s really busy like it is in a presidential election with long lines, there’s a tendency to start rushing things."

Most signatures are easily recognizable, but sometimes people are in a hurry and want to get it done, he added.

Republicans nationally have pushed for photo identification legislation to prevent election fraud, particularly regarding voter registration and absentee ballots.

This issue probably will come up in the 2013 Legislature, when lawmakers discuss whether election workers should request photo ID before voters can cast ballots.

Assemblyman Ira Hansen, R-Sparks, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in July that he does not predict success for his photo ID requirement for voters. But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an Arizona photo ID law in April, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Indiana voter ID law in 2008.

Hansen has said his goal is to prevent fraudulent voting by anyone.

Contact reporter Kristi Jourdan at kjourdan@reviewjournal.com or 383-0440.