Minnesota Woman Charged With Turning in Ballot For Dead Mother

A northern Minnesota woman accused of trying to submit a mail ballot for her recently deceased mother has been charged with three felonies, showing how routine election safeguards thwart rare instances of attempted voter fraud.

Officials in Itasca County, about 200 miles (322 kilometers) north of Minneapolis, said Monday that the improper vote was caught because the state provides a monthly list of people who've died to election officials, who then flag those names in the state's voter registration database. The woman returned ballots for herself and her mother in early October, and the county auditor's office, which oversees local elections, quickly verified that the mother had died at the end of August, almost three weeks before it began mailing out absentee ballots.

The woman told a sheriff's lieutenant in an interview that she filled out her mother's ballot after her mother's death, according to a probable cause statement filed with the district court. The statement said the woman was an “ardent” Trump supporter who had wanted to vote for him before she died.

Itasca County Attorney Jake Fauchald said the case shows election officials can catch problems and even rural counties have the resources and willingness to prosecute election fraud. Itasca County has about 45,000 residents.

“It was flagged almost immediately,” Fauchald said. “We do have ways of catching and flagging these fraudulent ballots and we’re going to do something about it so that those ballots don’t get through.”

The woman's first court appearance is set for Dec. 4. She is charged with one count of illegal voting and two counts of making or signing a false certificate, accused of forging her mother's signature, both on the mother's ballot envelope, and as a witness on her own. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

Sixteen other states prohibit counting ballots cast by someone who subsequently dies before the election, but 10 states specifically allow it. The law is silent in the rest of the country, according to research by the National Conference of State Legislatures.