A Pennsylvania man is facing criminal charges for allegedly requesting and casting ballots for dead relatives.
The Delaware County District Attorney announced the charges against Bruce Bartman Monday.
“We are charging him today with two counts of perjury for making false statements to register two deceased individuals who are his relatives both his mother and his mother-in-law. He made false statements through the state’s assure system to register them as voters and he’s also charged with making an unlawful vote because he actually submitted an absentee ballot for his deceased mother, a ballot that was counted,” District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said at a pressconference.
Stollsteimer says both women were registered as Republicans and Bartman told investigators he had done so to help reelect Donald Trump.
Bartman reportedly used the driver’s license number for his mother, who died more than a decade ago, and was able to obtain a ballot.
Prosecutors say he used his mother-in-law’s social security number to register her for the general election, and the system returned a deceased record for her prompting the state to send a confirmation letter to the address to confirm the information, according to WPVI.
Stollsteimer’s office says Bartman falsified this confirmation letter and returned it to register his mother-in-law to vote. He did not obtain a ballot in her name, according to prosecutors.
“In his political frustration, he chose to do something stupid,” Bartman’s lawyer, Samuel Stretton told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “And for that he is very sorry.”
Stollsteimer said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Delaware County and this was the only case of voter fraud during this election his office has encountered. However, they have had scores of leads investigators have followed up on.
Investigators said rumors on social media about a dead voter in Delaware County led to a complaint filed with the county’s Board of Elections. A task force followed up and found evidence of a crime, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
This incident is the third instance of reported voter fraud in Pennsylvania since the election last month, the Inquirer reported.
Previous reports include a man who cast two ballots on Election Day, one for himself and one in the name of his son, and of a man who allegedly applied for a ballot for his dead mother. No word if the ballot was cast.
