Marina del Rey Woman to Plead Guilty in Voter Registration Scheme

A Marina del Rey woman has agreed to plead guilty to a federal charge of paying people, including homeless individuals on Los Angeles’s Skid Row, to register to vote as part of a nearly two-decade-long petition signature-gathering scheme, federal prosecutors announced Monday.

Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong, 64, faces one felony count of paying another person to register to vote, an offense that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. She is scheduled to make an initial appearance in federal court in Santa Ana and formally enter her plea in the coming weeks.

According to court documents and statements from the U.S. Department of Justice, Armstrong worked for approximately 20 years as a paid petition circulator, collecting signatures to qualify initiatives, referendums, and recall efforts for California state ballots. She was compensated by coordinators based on the number of valid signatures from registered voters she submitted.

Prosecutors allege this payment structure created an incentive for Armstrong to ensure individuals were registered before they signed her petitions. They say she regularly paid people, usually between two and three dollars, to sign petitions....