Election Commission is Clean But Fraud Dispute Heats Up

The Cambridge Election Commission is having a rough year: fraud has been alleged in two elections, and the credentials of one commission member have been challenged. But amid charges and countercharges the commission has emerged with its reputation largely intact.

Cambridge Convention '75, a liberal political group, challenged the Ward One vote in the March city council election because of the alleged misuse of absentee ballots by another candidate, Edward T. Stewart, a convention spokesman said yesterday.

Stewart and three campaign workers were subsequently indicted and, according to the spokesman, will be tried sometime this fall.

On Tuesday, Lawrence W. Frisoli, a candidate in that council election, and Lawrence DeGugliolmo filed suit in Middlesex County Court against Sondra Scheir, an election commissioner, and several other convention members on behalf of Stewart. The suit charges libel, alleging that the convention members did "intentionally, maliciously, negligently and recklessly challenge the legality of all absentee ballots" in Ward One.

Meanwhile, the election commission is revising its ballot-counting procedure and replacing old ballot boxes in response to fraud charges in the race last March for Democratic State Committeeman. Edward Samp, an election commissioner, said yesterday that a police investigation had uncovered no fraud in that race, but illegalities were "possible" under the old system.

The faces at the election commission will at least remain the same, since former commissioner Francis R. Burns lost his September 9 appeal to void the appointment of his replacement, George Goverman. The City Manager appointed Goverman after his election in March by the Democratic City Committee. Burns forced a reelection in May, then twice unsuccessfully contested the Democrats' election rules; Samp said he did not think Burns would appeal further.

The city council election fraud charge and libel countercharge, however, are not yet settled.

Samp said that absentee ballots in Cambridge are reserved for invalids, and must be signed by a notary public in the presence of the voter. He added that Stewart's campaign workers had allegedly collected absentee ballots and given them to a notary, who had signed them all at once.

A Cambridge Convention spokesman, who requested anonymity, said the convention had challenged all absentee ballots in Ward One because they did not know which had been signed by notaries "associated with" Stewart.

The spokesman said the fact that some of the ballots challenged were marked, for Frisoli and notarized by DeGugliolmo was "basically incidental," and that the convention had never actually accused the two of any wrongdoing.