Once again, defendants in Pennsylvania have been charged with election fraud, proving for the umpteenth time the existence of alarming vulnerabilities in the election system across the United States.
Despite dumb arguments from the left that election cheating is “extraordinarily rare,” the truth is found in the many election fraud cases that show exactly how cheaters cheat.
U.S. Attorney David Metcalf, who is still awaiting Senate confirmation to make his interim appointment permanent, announced last week that two defendants have been charged separately with the same two election fraud offenses: one count of voting more than once in a federal election and one count of voter fraud.
According to an indictment, Matthew Laiss of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania lived in Ottsville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania from 2012 through August 2020. He was registered to vote there during that time. Laiss, 31, moved to Frostproof, Florida in August 2020, and that month he got a Florida driver’s license and registered to vote in Florida.
In October 2020, the Bucks County Board of Elections mailed a ballot for the November 2020 general election to his old Ottsville address where his parents lived, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ) indictment.
“The indictment alleges that, on or about October 31, 2020, Laiss filled out and returned the Pennsylvania mail-in ballot, casting a vote for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States of America,” a statement from the DOJ said. A few days later, Nov. 3, Laiss went to a polling place near Frostproof and voted again.
Miya Pack, 39, of Philadelphia, had been registered to vote in Bergen County, New Jersey, since 2004, and was also registered to vote in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, since 2016.
Pack voted early in person on Oct. 26, 2024 in Teaneck, N.J. She also voted in person on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024, in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, according to the indictment.
If convicted on each count, each defendant faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison, and a fine of $10,000 – $250,000.
These cases highlight why states and municipalities must be vigilant about keeping voter rolls clean. When someone moves to a new voting jurisdiction, and especially when they register to vote, it should trigger removal from the voter rolls in their old jurisdiction.
Democrats claim clean voter rolls somehow suppresses voters, The Federalist has previously reported.
Election Fraud Is Not Rare
Sloppy voter rolls are one of many election vulnerabilities. Last month Russian citizen Dmitry Shushlebin 45, pleaded guilty to conspiring to submit fraudulent voter registrations and other charges. Shushlebin was living in Miami Beach, Florida, where the DOJ says in a statement that he hired Sanjar Jamilov, 32, of Uzbekistan, and others, to submit more than 100 fraudulent voter registration applications through the mail to the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections in February and March 2023.
In Hamtramck, Michigan in August, surveillance videos caught several people allegedly stuffing the municipal ballot drop box with suspicious ballots. Individuals are supposed to drop of just one ballot per person, but people in vehicles were seen cramming stacks of ballots into the drop box.
In June, three officials who had served on the tiny Millbourne Borough Council in Pennsylvania were sentenced to prison for conspiracy to commit voter fraud and other charges, including for voting by mail using names of people living outside the borough.
In Mesa County, Colorado, a postal worker stole and cast mail-in ballots in the 2024 general election.
In April, Akeel Abdul Jamiel, a non-citizen from Iraq, fraudulently voted in the November 2020 election in Saratoga County, New York, according to the DOJ.
In July, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was investigating more than 100 noncitizens who may have fraudulently voted in 2020 and 2022. In Iowa, 277 noncitizens registered to vote or actually voted, Secretary of State Paul Pate reported in March.
This is not even close to a complete list of election fraud. And some people may have cheated without getting caught.
Death by a thousand cuts may be the best explanation for how U.S. election integrity has been compromised — inaccurate voter rolls, mail-in voter registration, voting by mail, drop boxes, non-citizen voting, voter fraud comes in many forms. Add lawfare; voter ID arguments; signatures and dates on mail-in ballots envelopes; and voting when outside the U.S. Each step of the process has vulnerabilities.
It will take a complete simplification of how we vote to protect elections from cheaters.