A student from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, plead guilty Monday to voter fraud after registering the names of dead voters with the Harrisonburg registrar’s office. The student, Andrew J. Spieles, 21 will spend up to 100 days in prison.
WTVR-TV reported that the student was working for Harrisonburg Votes a political organization founded by former Harrisonburg Mayor Joe Fitzgerald, a Democratic activist who was in office from 2002 to 2004.
“In July 2016, Spieles’ job was to register as many voters as possible and report to Democratic campaign headquarters in Harrisonburg,” a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office told WTVR. “After filling out a registration form for a voter…Spieles entered the information into a computer system used by the Virginia Democratic Party to track information such as name, age, address, and political affiliation. Every Thursday an employee [or] volunteer hand-delivered the paper copies of the registration forms to the registrar’s office in Harrisonburg.”
Note: Much to the chagrin of Mirror staff, this event occurred at our alma mater. Ouch.
A staff employee at the registrar’s office recognized one of the names he submitted which turned to out to belong to the deceased father of a Rockingham County judge. The employee notified the police, and the registrar’s office, after further investigation found other falsified forms.
“Some were in the names of deceased individuals while others bore incorrect middle names, birth dates, and social security numbers,” the spokesperson continued. “The registrar’s office learned that the individuals named in these forms had not, in fact, submitted the new voter registrations.”
According to the news report, Spieles later admitted to committing the crime.
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did the guy say this was intentionaly l done? Have had access for years to lists and disks ..and before that phone books were used..and lots of dead people show up all the time..Why not sentence the telephone company to 100 days in prison..b ecause they still keep the names of dead people in the telephone book?
The penalty was a bit steep for sure..was “malice” proved or admitted to? If there is so much criticism of all this..then we should let the feds step in..vote the same way all over the u.s. and thus standardized the whole system..this is probably b asically at the heart of the problem..a mishmash of state laws etc..There m ust be up to date federal list of voters that could be used…with new voters given the obligation to list their names .
This might sound like a lame excuse..but no one ever actually voted !!!!!
Was this intentionally done? Come on, how do you register dead people by accident? When I registered to vote I had to sign a voter registration form and answer several questions. How does a dead person do this by mistake. I do agree that there should be a standardized system nationwide.
No, I don’t think one hundred days is too harsh a penalty, a lesson in abject laziness at best. What does this student think he would accomplish, besides filling his roster? It is this type of
problem with voter fraud that enables politics (both sides) to weigh in and demand more stringent measures. When in actuality, a concise, standardized cross counter method of voter
registration could be enacted. Gerrymandering is a much larger issue in this state (and others, as well) and much more unfair to equitable voting and electing of officials. But, as far as registering dead people, I believe the bigger problem would be, if someone actually showed up to vote.