A graduate of James Madison University has been sentenced to 100 days in jail for falsifying Virginia voter registration forms last summer.
Andrew Spieles, who worked for the Democratic campaign voter registration drive Harrisonburg Votes (which is not affiliated with JMU), “admitted that he prepared the false voter registration forms by obtaining the name, age, and address of individuals from ‘walk sheets’ provided to him by the Virginia Democratic Party,” according to EAGNews.org.
An employee at the Registrar’s Office got in touch with law enforcement after recognizing the name of a Rockingham County judge’s deceased father on one of the forms.
WSET reports Spieles had been “directed to combine his registration numbers with those of another person because their respective territories overlapped.”
Spieles then filled out the registration forms, followed by entering the information into a Virginia Democratic Party computer system used to track (voter) personal information. Then, every Thursday, an employee or volunteer “hand-delivered the paper copies of the registration forms to the Registrar’s Office.”
That’s when Spieles’ machinations were discovered.
The Registrar’s Office discovered multiple instances of similarly falsified forms when it reviewed additional registrations.
Some were in the names of deceased individuals while others had incorrect middle names, birth dates, and social security numbers.
The Registrar’s Office then learned that the individuals named in these forms had not in face submitted the new voter registrations; the assistant registrar’s personal knowledge of the names of some of the individuals named in the falsified documents facilitated the detection of the crime.
Prosecutors admitted that he prepared the false voter registration forms by obtaining the name, age, and address of individuals from “walk sheets” provided to him by the Virginia Democratic Party, fabricating a birth date based on the ages listed in the walk sheet, and fabricated the social security numbers.
Spieles admitted that he created all 18 fraudulent forms himself and that no one else participated in the crime.
The JMU alum had faced a $100,000 fine, but the judge in the case waived it as Spieles couldn’t afford it.
In an email to The College Fix, JMU Director of Communications & Spokesperson Bill Wyatt said Spieles graduated this past school year with a degree in political science.
The Richmond Times Dispatch reports there is no evidence Spieles’ machinations led to any phony votes being cast in the 2016 election.
MORE: U. Maryland researchers: Racially biased whites’ ‘fear’ results in higher support for voter ID laws
MORE: Protecting the ballot box: the case for Voter ID laws
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