Vote Fraud “Likely Gone on Here for Years” in Alabama

An Alabama grand jury indicted the girlfriend of Dothan commissioner Amos Newsome on 23 counts of vote fraud in the campaign to re-elect Newsome last August. After absentee ballots favored Newsome by a 119-5 margin, his opponent filed a complaint, because Newsome won by only 14 votes. Prompted by the wide discrepancy, the county sheriff conducted a thorough investigation over several weeks, interviewing more than 100 witnesses.

The alleged vote fraud scheme includes two additional women besides Newsom’s girlfriend. The first woman is charged with 20 counts of vote fraud, the second is charged with 10 counts.

Sheriff Andy Hughes says that, “voter fraud has likely gone on here for years, usually in the same districts.”

The three women are charged under a state statute that criminalizes changing absentee ballot votes of another, voting more than once by absentee ballot in the same election, voting on behalf of another, and soliciting illegal absentee voting. Furthermore, “Any person who willfully aids any person unlawfully to vote an absentee ballot, any person who knowingly and unlawfully votes an absentee ballot, and any voter who votes both an absentee and a regular ballot at any election shall be similarly punished.”