Keven Hayes, a homeless man from Columbia, Missouri, pleaded guilty to perjury in 2016 after he forged signatures on a ballot petition in 2014. He had falsified 363 signatures on 60 petitions advocating for an early voting proposal to be placed on the ballot. Hayes was given a four-year suspended sentence and placed on probation […]
Rogell Coker, Jr., of Columbia, Missouri, pleaded guilty to three felony counts of forgery after he forged signatures on ballot petitions in 2014. Coker was responsible for 116 fraudulent signatures spread across 26 petitions advocating for an early voting proposal to be put on the ballot. He was given a five-year suspended sentence, placed on […]
Brandon Hall was convicted of ten counts of ballot petition fraud stemming from the 2012 election. Chris Houghtaling, who sought to become a candidate for the Ottawa County District Court, hired Hall to acquire the necessary signatures for his candidacy; Houghtaling reportedly did not care whether the signatures were collected legally or illegally, and even […]
Elsadig Saeed Merghani pleaded guilty in 2016 to forging signatures on a petition to get two anti-fracking initiatives on the ballot in the 2016 general election. Merghani submitted at least three signatures that were marked as questionable upon review. The environmentalist-backed ballot measures ultimately did not garner sufficient signatures to qualify for the ballot.
In 2014, Maria C. Del Toro received $1,900 to collect signatures for a recall election effort against Salinas City Elementary School District Trustee, Janet Barnes. The recall ultimately failed, but during a random audit, the election department found significant discrepancies in the signatures submitted by Del Toro. She confessed to forging the signatures and pleaded […]
Renaldo Johnson of Las Vegas pleaded guilty to one felony offense for submitting a falsified petition. Johnson was indicted on multiple charges related to submitting fake ballot signatures to have Jill Stein, a Green Party presidential candidate, on the state’s ballot. Johnson awaits sentencing.
Danny Williams, of Boone County, Missouri, pleaded guilty to three felony counts of forgery. He falsified 114 signatures on 40 ballot petitions advocating that a proposal regarding early voting be placed on the ballot. Williams was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment (suspended) and five years’ probation.
Angelo Felix Abad forged at least one signature while circulating petitions to place a minimum wage increase on the 2016 ballot. He ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of felony forgery. He now faces a maximum possible sentence of up to six years’ imprisonment, and was sentenced on April 7, 2017.
While working for Black Diamond Outreach, a Denver-based community outreach organization, Maureen Marie Moss forged 34 signatures on petitions she was circulating to get U.S. Senate candidate Jon Keyser on the ballot for the June 2016 primary. Moss ultimately pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to four years’ probation on each count. She was also ordered […]
Peggy West, a former Milwaukee county supervisor, submitted false signatures on a petition to place her on the ballot for the spring 2018 election. According to the complaint filed against her, West forged the signatures of multiple residents within her district, and used a third party to collect other signatures despite the legal requirement that […]