What is ballot collection?
Gathering votes has raised bipartisan fraud concerns by election observers, but not all states are trying to stop the practice.
Former US Rep. Michael Myers was charged this week with conspiring to violate voting rights by fraudulently filling the ballot boxes for specific candidates in various primary elections, bribes and obstructions, the Justice Department said Thursday.
Myers, a Democrat, served as a congressman for Pennsylvania’s first district from 1976 until he was expelled from the House in 1980 after the Abscam scandal.
The Justice Department said Thursday that it was charged this week with conspiring and bribing former Election Judge for District 39, Division 36, Domenick J. Demuro. Demuro had previously pleaded guilty in federal court and was responsible for overseeing the entire electoral process and all activities of the voters in his division in accordance with federal and state electoral laws.
THE DOJ LOADS CHINESE HACKERS
Myers, 77, is accused of filling the ballot boxes for candidates during the 2014, 2015 and 2016 primary elections, bribing Demuro, falsifying records, voting more than once in federal elections, and obstruction of justice.
In this 1980 photo, then-Rep. Michael Myers, D-Pa. He speaks to journalists on Capitol Hill after he was kicked out of Congress by other House members for accepting a bribe in the FBI’s Abscam case.
Myers allegedly bribed Demuro to illegally add votes for certain candidates of their mutual party in the primary election. Some of the candidates, according to the Department of Justice, were individuals running for judicial office whose campaigns hired Myers, and others were candidates for various federal, state and local elective offices that Myers favored.
According to the indictment, Myers would request payments from his clients in the form of cash or checks as “consulting fees,” and then use portions of those funds to pay Demuro and others in exchange for altering the election results.
Payments, according to the Justice Department, ranged from $ 300 to $ 5,000 per election.
“Free and fair elections are the hallmark of our system of government,” acting Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian Rabbitt of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in a statement Thursday. “The Justice Department has zero tolerance for corruption in the electoral process, and we will spare no effort to investigate and prosecute those seeking an unfair advantage at the ballot box by bribing state and local officials responsible for ensuring the fairness of our elections.” “
Pennsylvania State Police Captain Leo Hannon Jr., director of the Special Investigations Division, said the charges “clearly illustrate the allegations of utter contempt for the sanctity of our electoral system.”
The case is being investigated by the FBI with the help of the Pennsylvania State Police.
