The lawyer says he made the “mistake” to pretend the man was dead for Trump’s vote

• Bruce Bartman pretended to be his dead mother for illegally voting for President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, the prosecutor says.
• Bartman’s lawyer, Samuel Strait, told Insider that he had pleaded guilty and intended to plead guilty.
• Stratton said Trump had his way of disrespecting the citizen by voting illegally.
• U.S. Voter fraud is extremely rare in India, with less than 200 convicted cases between 2000 and 2020, when millions of votes were cast.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

A lawyer representing Bruce Bartman – a Pennsylvania Republican accused of fraudulently pretending to be his dead mother to vote for President Donald Trump on his behalf – says his client believes he took part in some sort of protest.

Attorney Samuel Stratton told Insider on Tuesday that “they were angry at those who criticized the president and complained about the election process, and wanted to do what he considered a civil disobedience by registering his mother and voting for her.” “Of course, it was a wild mistake.”

Bartman is accused of illegal voting and lying. Delaware County attorneys say he filled out voter registration forms in August Gust using a driver’s license for his deceased mother, Elizabeth Bartman, and a social security number for his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Wehman. He eventually voted Elizabeth Bartman’s name for Trump.

Stratton told Insider that Bartman intends to plead guilty once during the initial hearing, calling his case proceedings a “terrible mistake.”

Bartman, 70, faces up to 19 years in prison. Stratton said he hopes his client will get probation.

“He was completely wrong in doing that and he has accepted full and full responsibility,” Strait said.

Although the vote on behalf of Elizabeth Bartman increased Trump’s numbers, it did not affect the overall election results. President-elect Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by more than 82,000 votes and carried Delaware County.

Prosecutors said this was the only known case in which they received hundreds of “voter fraud” tips.

Prosecutors said Bartman was the only voter fraud case they got from the hundreds of tips assigned to them.

Stratton said the case was initially flagged by The New York Times instead of the county or state voter services. The Times, he said, is running an investigative story that investigates names in circumstances contrary to voter records, and finds the name of the deceased Elizabeth Bartman. (The Times did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.)

“County detectives or the DA’s office fee checked after that. And then, because my client was using his computer to do this, they were able to find him.” “Interestingly, one newspaper did independent peer reviews that internally chose the opposite.”

Stratton said he was “concerned” that state officials did not address the issue themselves, and hoped it would be fixed for future elections.

“It will be interesting to know why I can clearly name a cemetery, erase it from my computer and vote for it,” Strait said. “Well, I want to know how it can be improved in the future.”

Republicans frequently exaggerate the scope of voter fraud, which is extremely rare in the United States as an excuse to ban voting. This year, they have largely advanced conspiracy theories about the presidential election to discredit Biden’s victory, despite the popular vote of more than id million.

The idea within that legend is that people often vote for the dead. Republicans often combine phenomena with voter registration forms – which, along with registration for voting – can be sent by anyone and in the mail to anyone.

In November, Trump campaign and Fox News host Tucker Carlson also spread conspiracy theories that many of the dead in Pennsylvania and Georgia “voted”, but the people they named were very alive, and in most cases were just mixed with their deceased spouses.

The Right to Heritage Foundation, which handles a database of voter fraud cases, found fewer than 200 convicted cases between 2000 and 2020, a period in which millions of people voted.

“This is the only known case of ‘dead person’ voting in our county, despite conspiracy theories,” Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stolsteim said in a statement Monday. “Further, the urgent action taken in this case shows that law enforcement will uphold our election law whenever it is presented with factual evidence of fraud and we will continue to investigate every allegation that [sic] Come our way. “

Stratton said Bartman does not believe it will be easy, Trump has suggested, to vote more on behalf of a deceased person. That he was not just trying to run numbers for the candidate of his choice.

“As he described it to me, it was his way of disobeying citizens by illegally voting for Trump,” Strait said. “I told him that civil disobedience is done in the eyes of the people. And he said it is wrong and he is very sorry about this.”