"That's what we're looking at now to determine if we have another problem or the same problem," Rolfe said.

The investigation, a joint effort with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. postal inspectors, has since been closed, according to Sgt. Dale Neal of Highway Patrol Investigation.

Neal said two suspects are being actively sought in the case and have been charged with federal mail fraud and being in the country illegally after allegedly requiring that individuals, many from the East Coast, pay $800 to get a driver's license in Utah.

"They would tell them what they needed to do to get a Utah driver's license and also provided them an address to use as a residence in Utah," Neal said. "Right now, because of new legislation and new policies and procedures that were implemented . . . I don't think there's a lot of this going on right now."

The current penalty for mail fraud is a maximum 20 years in prison. It is a deportable offense for noncitizens.

On the elections side, auditor general John Schaff said he has received the Election Division's request for records but may only be able to release them to the attorney general's office.

Assistant attorney general Thom Roberts said his office might try to obtain the information if the lieutenant governor can't. He said the possibility that noncitizens registered to vote is concerning, but "the initial concern would be if someone voted who was not eligible to vote."

Activists on both sides of the immigration debate, meanwhile, say they've been unsuccessfully trying to gain access to the voter registration information mentioned in the auditor's survey.

Frank Cordova, director of Utah Coalition of La Raza, said the survey was inconclusive but "has implicated the entire Latino community. They've made us all look suspicious and legally ineligible voters. That isn't true."

Cordova said he and others have worked for several years to register voters and have worked closely with Salt Lake County elections officials. It has always been made clear that only citizens can vote, he said.

Cordova said he wants to know "how many people registered, where they registered and if there is some fraud going on. Right now there's no answer to any of those. . . . It would be very interesting to find out where they registered and who registered them," he said.

Russell Sias, vice chairman of Utahns for Immigration Reform and Enforcement, has also been trying to access the information. Sias believes there are more undocumented individuals voting than the audit suggests, and he would like to see a full audit of the state's voter rolls.

"Everybody gets to pass the buck," Sias said. "We're still in this deny, deny, deny and when all else fails, pass the buck or mitigate the damages."

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com