DV Journal

Perhaps to send a warning to other would-be voting fraud culprits, federal Judge Harvey Bartle III on Wednesday sentenced two former Millbourne Borough officials to stiff sentences for election fraud.

Nurul Hasan, 48, former vice president of Millbourne Borough Council, pleaded guilty in April to all 33 charges against him — one count of conspiracy, 16 counts of giving false information in registering to vote, and 16 counts of fraudulent voter registration. He was sentenced to 36 months in prison, one year of supervised release, and a $3,300 special assessment, according to U.S. Attorney David Metcalf.

Former borough Councilman Rafikul Islam, 52, pleaded guilty in April to all seven charges against him — one count of conspiracy, three counts of giving false information in registering to vote, and three counts of fraudulent voter registration. He was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison, one year of supervised release, $1,000 fine, and a $700 special assessment.

A third defendant, Munsur Ali, 48, who was also a member of the borough council, pleaded guilty in April to all 25 charges against him — one count of conspiracy, 12 counts of giving false information in registering to vote, and 12 counts of fraudulent voter registration. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 26.

“These defendants sabotaged the democratic will of their fellow citizens in deciding Millbourne’s next mayor,” said Metcalf. “Public trust in the electoral process is critical, and my office is committed to ensuring that our elections remain free and fair. As this case shows, should we find instances of fraud, we won’t hesitate to prosecute those responsible.”

The ballot-stuffing occurred during the 2021 election cycle. The borough residents voted for mayor and three council seats.

During the May primary election, Hasan was defeated in the primary by a vote count of approximately 138 to 120. In the same primary, Ali was one of three majority party candidates for borough council to advance to the general election, while Islam lost his bid for reelection to the council.

After the primary, Hasan decided to run as a write-in candidate for mayor in the November general election. Ali and Islam agreed to support him.

The three men used several methods to secure a victory for Hasan, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a press release.

In a scheme detailed in court documents and that the defendants admitted to, they obtained personal identification information of non-Millbourne residents, such as their names, addresses, and dates of birth and used that information to access the state’s online voter registration website and change their addresses to Millbourne.

They then asked for mail-in or absentee ballots for those nonresidents to be sent to addresses where the defendants could retrieve them.

They then impersonated the voters and fraudulently cast write-in votes for defendant Hasan to be mayor, a process that included forging signatures of the impersonated voters. Finally, they submitted those fraudulent ballots to the Delaware County Board of Elections.

Hasan and Ali also conspired and agreed to use personal identifying information for other non-Millbourne residents, which the two defendants had obtained from other sources, such as Hasan’s business, to register those nonresidents as Millbourne voters without the knowledge of those non-residents, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

As a cover for his actions, Hasan sometimes used email addresses belonging to other people with their consent. Islam was one of them. Islam allowed Hasan to use two of Islam’s email addresses when Hasan fraudulently changed the voter registration addresses for six individuals. Islam also permitted Hasan to use two of Islam’s email addresses when requesting mail-in ballots for five non-Millbourne residents.

The men conspired to fraudulently register about 36 non-Millbourne residents as Millbourne voters and to cast ballots for them in the 2021 election. Despite the skullduggery, Hasan lost by about 165 to 138, officials said.

“These crimes undermine faith in elections generally,” said James Allen, Delaware County director of elections. “For that reason, it was important for the court to make absolutely clear that such fraud will be detected, will be investigated and will be prosecuted, and persons who commit these crimes will be punished accordingly. The court did just that.”

The case was investigated by the FBI and the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark B. Dubnoff.

“Free and fair elections are the bedrock principle that defines American democracy. I appreciate the partnership between my office, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to bring these criminals to justice,” said Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer.

“The electoral process is a pillar of our democracy, so when public officials undermine this system through fraud, they don’t only break the law — they compromise the trust built between this process and the American people,” said Wayne A. Jacobs, special agent in charge of FBI Philadelphia. “The FBI remains unwavering in our commitment to protecting the integrity of elections and ensuring those who break these laws are held accountable.”

Mellbourne Borough officials did not respond to requests for comment.

The 2020 election involved a criminal voter fraud scheme with mass absentee ballots and phony voter registrations, according to the Justice Department and the New Jersey attorney general.

This verdict and indictment happened in 2023. Prosecutors in Massachusetts and New York brought election fraud charges in the closing weeks of December.

The Justice Department secured a guilty verdict against a congressional candidate’s spouse  — Kim Phuong Taylor — from a federal jury in November in Sioux City, Iowa, on 52 counts regarding causing absentee ballots to be fraudulently requested and cast that occurred in two elections. Her husband, Jeremy Taylor, ran unsuccessfully in the 2020 Republican primary for the U.S. House in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District, then successfully in the general election to be re-elected as a Woodbury County supervisor.

In late October, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin announced Paterson City Council President Alex Mendez is facing more charges in his election fraud case stemming from his 2020 race. He was previously indicted in 2021 regarding actions in the election. The attorney general’s office alleges Mendez personally collected ballots and oversaw the fraudulent mailing of ballots while members of his campaign stole ballots from residential mailboxes and discarded several that did not cast a vote for their candidate. He had three alleged co-conspirators in the case.

As explained in my book “The Myth of Voter Suppression,” election fraud cases are more easily detectable in some states than others. And far too often, remedies to curb absentee ballot fraud are unfairly smeared.

Some high-profile stories have prompted Democratic politicians and much of the media to trot out their talking point that voter fraud is a farce. Another talking point is that those rascally red states are prosecuting election fraud cases as a means to infringe on voting rights.

But in the last quarter of 2023, indictments or adjudicated court cases occurred in various states.

On Dec. 21 in Lawrence, Mass., City Councilor-elect Fidelina Santiago and an ally were indicted on charges including illegal voting, conspiracy to vote illegally, and obstruction of voting, WBZ CBS News Boston reported. The charges, brought by Essex County District Attorney Paul Tucker, stem from the November 2023 election after first being reported by the Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin’s office.

Also, just days before Christmas in Queens, New York, a 32-year-old man was indicted on charges of casting 20 falsified absentee ballots in the Democratic primary in 2022, Fox News reported. Queens County District Attorney Melinda Katz emphasized: “Every vote has to count. Election integrity is the foundation of a viable, working democracy.” The Queens man faces 140 charges. Beyond casting fake ballots, prosecutors say the man obtained approval for 32 out of 118 ballot applications.

Among the most high-profile cases is one in Bridgeport, Conn., where some of the alleged fraud from the September Democratic mayoral primary seemed to have been caught on camera. This led Mayor Joe Ganim — who served time on a previous public corruption conviction when he was mayor of the city about two decades earlier — to accept full responsibility, WSHU reported.

Ganim, however, said he wasn’t aware that a Democratic operative was allegedly stuffing ballots into a drop box outside Bridgeport City Hall and caught on camera in the act. A state judge tossed Ganim’s primary victory a week before the November general election, calling the evidence of fraud “shocking.”

A Texas state appeals court overturned the result of a Laredo City Council race, ruling that Ricardo Rangel Jr. was the rightful winner of a 2022 election. This came after the alleged involvement of city police officers in casting illegal votes, the Laredo Morning Times reported.

These legal cases highlight how voter fraud can be committed, emphasizing the critical need for robust election integrity laws.

The prosecutions and convictions brought within the last three months — ranging from illegal voting and ballot tampering to fraudulent registration — underscore the vulnerabilities in the electoral system.

As these cases unfold, they underscore the importance of continuous efforts to strengthen election laws and protect the vote as we move into 2024 — enabling us to safeguard the democratic foundations of the United States.

Republicans are heading back to court to force Pennsylvania Democrats to follow election law and a new U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding ballot security.

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court backed a Pennsylvania law requiring absentee ballots to be dated before being counted, reversing a 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Court opinion. Now the Republican Party at the state and national levels is suing to require Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State to abide by the high court’s decision.

Following a joint lawsuit filed Monday against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for planning to illegally accept undated mail-in ballots, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, NRCC Chairman Tom Emmer, and PAGOP Chairman Lawrence Tabas released a statement.

“As the Pennsylvania legislature and U.S. Supreme Court have made clear, undated mail-in ballots should not be counted. Republicans are holding Pennsylvania Democrats accountable for their brazen defiance of the Supreme Court and the rules duly set by the legislature. Pennsylvania Democrats have a history of election integrity failures and Pennsylvanians deserve better: this lawsuit is the latest step in Republican efforts to promote free, fair, and transparent elections in the Keystone State.”

Supporters of the lawsuit point out that practically every legal document must be dated. Moreover, in at least 17 states, absentee ballots are counted after polls close on Election Day. Another 16 states allow counting to begin on Election Day. And then, says J. Christian Adams with the Public Interest Legal Foundation, there is the issue of basic fairness.

“States need to follow their own election rules.  When they don’t, the losers in elections doubt the fairness of the process,” Adams said.

Democrats insist the court’s ruling does not prevent them from counting improperly-cast ballots. Acting Secretary of State Leigh M. Chapman said county elections officials should still count mail-in votes that arrive in exterior envelopes with inaccurate or nonexistent dates, despite a requirement in state law that they must have them.

And former Hillary Clinton attorney Marc Elias, a leading force behind Democratic efforts to block ballot security policies, said that while the Supreme Court may have ruled the 3rd Circuit’s decision moot, “they didn’t say it was wrong.”

As the fight continues in the Keystone State, the high court’s order has a national impact. It sends a message that Democratic activists and their allies in the judiciary cannot just misuse the Materiality Provision of the Voting Rights Act to attack common safeguards. The 3rd Circuit panel tried to use the provision to strike down what should seem the simplest voting requirement.

Republicans argue this case proves Democrats oppose any ballot security measures by labeling them all forms of voter suppression.

When Georgia passed its voter law in 20201, President Joe Biden described it as worse than the racist abuses of the South’s Jim Crow era (“It’s Jim Eagle!”). And he compared U.S. senators who would not kill the filibuster to pass a federal law overriding Georgia’s rules to segregationist Bull Connor and Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

A Gallup poll this month showed 79 percent of voters support voter ID, with big majorities across demographics.

Most voter fraud convictions are related to mail-in ballots—including those tied to a North Carolina congressional race overturned in 2018 after a ballot harvesting scam was uncovered.

Such voting is particularly vulnerable when ballot harvesting is allowed. It is the practice of political operatives or non-governmental actors collecting and distributing massive quantities of absentee ballots. That opens the door to both voter intimidation and ballot tampering.

“Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud,” the 2005 bipartisan Carter-Baker Commission reported. “The practice in some states of allowing candidates or party workers to pick up and deliver absentee ballots should be eliminated.”

The Republicans who brought the lawsuit point out it was the second time in recent weeks that the RNC has brought litigation to remedy this type of issue. The RNC is involved in 71 cases of election integrity litigation in 20 states this cycle, it says.

“Pennsylvania Democrats’ consistent disregard for the election rules set by the legislature has resulted in Pennsylvania being a national election administration laughingstock.”

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