Ohio GOP Official Charged With Voter Fraud Over Dead Dad’s Ballot

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Edward Snodgrass, elected trustee in Porter Township, has admitted to committing voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, according to NBC News. Court records show that Snodgrass is alleged to have forged his deceased father's signature on an absentee ballot and, later, voted again himself.

While the 57-year-old refused to say which candidate he cast ballots for, he argued that "it would not be accurate to characterize what he did as "just Trump voter fraud." Making a futile attempt to justify his actions, Snodgrass claimed he "was simply trying to execute a dying man's wishes."

Morrow County Assistant Prosecutor David Homer, the veteran Ohio prosecutor handling Snodgrass' case, revealed just how rare this occurrence is. Although he has more than three decades of professional experience, he admitted that this is a first even for him. "I've been doing this since the 1980s, and this is the first one I've seen like this," Homer said.

Although Snodgrass was initially hit with a fourth-degree felony charge for illegal voting and faces the possibility of a minimum six months behind bars and a fine, NBC has confirmed that he has not agreed to any form of a deal.

"It ain't over till the guy pleads guilty and that's July the 9th," Homer said.

The charges brought against Snodgrass come months after Republican lawmakers' repeated claims of voter fraud despite having very little evidence to support their claims. Amid former President Donald Trump's post-election legal battle, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) released the details of an audit conducted in the state which confirmed election results were 99.98 percent accurate.

In an email, Homer also pushed back against Trump's baseless claims.

"In fact, what is typical about this crime is that it is so at odds with the typical claims of voter fraud that we hear from Donald Trump and other (usually Republican) politicians," he said in an email. "The fact is, very few people commit voter fraud and when they do it usually looks like this: one person casting an additional vote through a strange series of circumstances that gave him an opportunity he shouldn't have taken. And he got caught."