Man admits to voter fraud in casting dead mother's ballot

[left-of-center2012]

MEDIA, Pa. (AP) —
A Pennsylvania man who illegally voted for Donald Trump on behalf of his long-dead mother in last year's presidential election was sentenced Friday to five years of probation. Bruce Bartman, 70, of Marple, pleaded guilty Friday to two counts of perjury and one count of unlawful voting. Besides his probation term, he will not be allowed to vote in an election for four years and is no longer eligible to serve on a jury.

Bartman apologized for his actions, telling the judge "I was isolated last year in lockdown. I listened to too much propaganda and made a stupid mistake." Bartman voted in place of his dead mother, authorities have said, and he also registered his mother-in-law, who died in 2019, to vote but did not obtain an absentee ballot for her.

Prosecutors have said Bartman used the driver's license number for his mother, who died more than a decade ago, to register her to vote, obtain a mail-in ballot, return that ballot and fraudulently vote in her name.

https://www.wtae.com/article/man-admits-to-voter-fraud-in-casting-dead-mothers-ballot/36283098

Bruce Bartman will not be allowed to vote for the next four years ... will also serve five years probation, according to Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer.

https://www.fox29.com/news/delaware-county-man-sentenced-for-casting-dead-mothers-ballot

[MiHale]

1. Imagine the wailing if he was a Democrat...

They’d set this up as “PROOF” they were right.

[Generic Other]

2. Crystal Masonsentenced to five years in prison for a mistaken vote

Texas upholds sentence for woman who didn’t know she was ineligible to vote

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/20/crystal-mason-texas-upholds-sentence-voter-suppression

[crickets]

4. I'm too slow for the second day in a row. Great minds think alike. 😄

The contrast between the handling of Bruce Bartman and Crysal Mason's cases is stark. Bartman knowingly tried to cast a fraudulent vote and served no time, while Crystal Mason was sent to jail for making a mistaken vote that was never counted. Ugh.

[LizBeth]

5. This one sticks with me and was thinking same thing. I cannot believe that is really a sentence for

what she did.

[crickets]

3. Meanwhile, in Texas...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/20/crystal-mason-texas-upholds-sentence-voter-suppression

A Texas appeals court on Thursday upheld a five-year prison sentence for a woman who was convicted of illegally voting even though she didn’t know she was ineligible when she went to the polls in 2016. The punishment for the Fort Worth woman, Crystal Mason, stirred national outrage because of its severity, prompting accusations that prosecutors were trying to intimidate Texans from voting.

Four years ago, Mason was on supervised release, similar to probation, for a federal felony conviction related to tax fraud. She didn’t know that Texas prohibits felons from voting until they finish their sentence entirely. Mason voted in the last presidential election at the urging of her mother and cast a provisional ballot when poll workers couldn’t find her name on the voter registration rolls. The ballot was never counted because Mason was not an eligible voter.

During her 2018 trial probation officials testified that they never told Mason she could not vote, but the appeals court said that didn’t matter. Mason was guilty, the court said, because she knew she was on supervised release. “Contrary to Mason’s assertion, the fact that she did not know she was legally ineligible to vote was irrelevant to her prosecution,” Justice Wade Birdwell wrote for a three-judge panel on Texas’ second court of appeals. [snip]

Because she was convicted of illegal voting while on supervised release, a federal judge had also sent her back to federal prison in late 2018, where she served several months. Her teenage daughter Taylor put off going to college to come home and run the household. The family depended in part on donations from a GoFundMe account. Since her conviction, Mason has become more politically active – she hosted a voter registration drive ahead of Texas’s primary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Mason

On November 30, 2020 Mason's attorneys filed a petition with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to review the case.[11] The petition asserts that the lower court ruling violates Texas law and conflicts with the Court's previous ruling in DeLay v. State. The conviction of Former Republican U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay was thrown out on the basis that an individual must "know" that their conduct violates the Election Code. Andre Segura, legal director for the ACLU of Texas was quoted in a press release saying "The same result must apply to Crystal—a woman who was not aware she was ineligible to vote and had no reason to risk her liberty." On March 31, 2021 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has agreed to consider Crystal Mason's appeal.[12]

Crystal Mason is currently out on bond while her case is being appealed.

[ecstatic]

10. Unbelievable! Smh. Nt

[lpbk2713]

6. Was a Trump victory REALLY that important to him?

Obsessive much?

[JanMichael]

7. But but but he is wearing a suit and tie! nt

[Blue Owl]

8. Norman Bates was a good son

[ecstatic]

9. Another repug caught for voter fraud! Surprise! (not)

That's republican pathology. All they do is project. GOP/QOP talking heads convince idiots like this guy that Democrats are out there cheating, and I think it's an indirect way of giving their followers marching orders to cheat to level the playing field.

In my neck of the woods, it's difficult to get Democrats to vote even one time. And those of us who do vote are not obsessed cult followers who are willing to break the law and potentially go to jail to install a candidate.

[Kid Berwyn]

11. "I listened to too much propaganda..."

The GOP mindset.