A Richmond grand jury on Monday indicted 10 convicted felons on charges of election fraud for allegedly lying on voter registration forms during the 2008 presidential election campaign.
The grand jury indicted five men and five women on one count each of making a material false statement on a voter registration form, a felony.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael N. Herring said the charges stem from a statewide investigation by the Virginia State Police into allegations of fraud in 2008.
Herring said each of those indicted spoke with a solicitor who was trying to get people to register to vote. In most cases, the person told the solicitor that he or she was a felon, and some of those indicted told a solicitor they therefore could not vote.
Herring said the solicitors told each person they could vote, which wasn’t true. In some cases, Herring said, a solicitor told the felon that new legislation had restored the felon’s right to vote or that if he or she was going through a process to have voting rights restored, he or she could vote.
Each of the felons indicated on a form that he or she was not a convicted felon, Herring said.
“They were proud to have voted,” Herring said.
EEEKKKK!!! Voter fraud! The problem? The solicitors are the problem here. They pop in and out of someone’s life and then fade to gray, ever to be seen again. So, how can these people be convicted? They lied on their voter regiatration form. The problem is, none of the new legislation would have prevented this type of voter fraud. Have we enacted useless legislation that really does prevent deserving people from voting?
The charge of making a material false statement on a voter registration form is a Class 6 felony that could carry a sentence of zero to five years in prison. Herring said he will not be seeking jail time for the 10 defendants.
The Felon must:
- Must be a resident of Virginia, and/or have been convicted of a felony in a Virginia court, a U.S. District court or a military court
- be free from any sentence served or supervised probation and parole for a minimum of two years for a non-violent offense or five years for a violent felony or drug distribution, drug manufacturing offense, any crimes against a minor, or an election law offense.
- have paid all court costs, fines, penalties and restitution and have no felony or misdemeanor charges pending.
- not have had a DWI in the five years immediately preceding the application.
- Not have any misdemeanor convictions and/or pending criminal charges 2 years preceding the application for non-violent felonies or five years for a violent felony or drug distribution, drug manufacturing offense, any crimes against a minor, or an election law offense.
Note: this restoration of voting rights does not automatically restore rights to carry a weapon. That must be applied for separately.
Those are pretty tough rules. Perhaps we ought to make more of an issue of letting people know that they cannot vote. Is the law with rules posted outside of each poll? I am sort of stuck trying to figure out how these folks got caught. So yes, Virginia, there is voter fraud. The problem is, our new laws won’t catch it.
Maybe its time to admit that all the time wasted on Voter ID Laws in the legislature is just that…a waste of time.
Herring said he did not know for whom the felons voted. “I really don’t know,” he said. “It wouldn’t be germane to me. I couldn’t care less.”
Uh-Huh.
Does it matter to the prosecution? Noooo.
I missed the part where this one case proves that nobody ever committed voter fraud another way. Then and only then have you got yourself a point.
I never made such a claim. I said that all the bruhaha over the voter ID wouldn’t matter on cases like these. Lots of time has been spent on voter ID. It is obvious why.