How a woman who has been dead 12 years was able to vote in Pennsylvania
By PAUL MUSCHICK
THE MORNING CALL |
DEC 23, 2020 AT 8:00 AM
It looks like Donald Trump was right after all. Authorities say they have uncovered evidence of Pennsylvania voter fraud — a dead person voting.
Don’t expect the president to boast about it, though. It was one of his supporters who was nabbed.
Again.
This is the third case of authorities filing voter fraud charges in Pennsylvania. All three of the accused are Republicans, in case you’ve lost track.
In announcing the latest charges on Monday, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer stressed that this was an isolated incident.
“For all of the conspiracy theorists who may be out there watching, the case we are talking about today presents no evidence of widespread voter fraud,” he said at a news conference.
The man facing criminal charges was able to register two deceased relatives to vote, Stollsteimer said, and cast an absentee ballot for one of them in the November election, because of failures in the state’s voter registration system.
That’s more concerning than a single fraudulent vote.
Instead of chasing ghosts to further Trump’s crusade to overturn the election, that’s what the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature should be zeroing in on as it plans early next year to audit how the 2020 election went.
There are things that need to be fixed, and this is one of them.
Others include allowing counties to process mail ballots before Election Day, and clarifying whether counties are allowed to contact mail voters about incomplete ballots to give them an opportunity to correct their omissions. In November, some counties did while others didn’t.
State elections officials did not respond to my questions Tuesday about the concerns raised in the Delaware County case. But I hope they’re digging into them.
Bruce Bartman, 70, a registered Republican from Marple Township, exploited the failures of the state’s voter registration system, Stollsteimer said. He faces charges of perjury and unlawful voting.
“He in effect voted twice,” Stollsteimer said, “once for himself and once for his deceased mother ... he has admitted to the detectives who questioned him that he did this to further the campaign of Donald Trump.”
His mother died in 2008. Bartman also was accused of registering his deceased mother-in-law, who died last year, but authorities said he did not cast a vote in her name.
Stollsteimer said detectives verified that the absentee ballot he submitted in his mother’s name was counted, but they did not review it to see who the votes were for because that would have violated voter privacy. He said Bartman told detectives the ballot was for Trump.
“In his political frustration, he chose to do something stupid,” Bartman’s attorney, Samuel Stretton, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “And for that he is very sorry.”
Charges remain pending against two other Pennsylvania Republicans in voter fraud cases.
Robert Lynn, 67, of Forty Fort, Luzerne County, is accused of applying for an absentee ballot in the name of his deceased mother, who died five years ago.
Ralph Thurman, 71, of Malvern, Chester County, is accused of voting at his polling place and then returning and voting again by impersonating his son.
In announcing the charges against Bartman on Monday, Stollsteimer said there were no political motivations in pursuing the case. He said the investigators and prosecutors are a mix of Democrats and Republicans. Stollsteimer is a Democrat.
“If he had voted for Joe Biden or he had written in Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse, we would still be prosecuting this case because this is a violation of the integrity of the American electoral process,” Stollsteimer said.
He questioned whether Pennsylvania’s voting system is susceptible to being manipulated.
Bartman registered his deceased mother and mother-in-law online. The application requires a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number.
For his mother, he entered her driver’s license number, Stollsteimer said, and the system “did what it was supposed to do” and verified the information with PennDOT. She wasn’t flagged as being deceased, he said, and instead, her PennDOT information was loaded into the voter registration system, including her signature.
For his mother-in-law, Bartman entered the last four digits of her Social Security number, Stollsteimer said. The voting system identified her as being deceased, based on Social Security records.
The elections system followed federal protocols and sent a letter to the address on the application, seeking to verify the information that had been entered. Bartman signed the letter to indicate that the Social Security number was correct, Stollsteimer said. His response was accepted, overriding the death record in the Social Security system and allowing the application in her name to be approved.
“Why those two flaws in the system exist is beyond the scope of our investigation,” Stollsteimer said.
Well, it’s imperative that someone investigate it.
It should be impossible for a dead person to be able to register to vote. Even an isolated incidence tarnishes the reputation of the entire system. And it gives conspiracy theorists reason to continue their futile fight to overturn the election. RESULT TRUMP LOSES 3 MORE VOTES.
