What Happens When Everyone Works Together to Stop Vote Fraud

What happens when you have a vote fraud hotline, a sheriff interested in investigating vote fraud, and a State’s attorney willing to prosecute vote fraud?  Results.  Vote fraud is found and hopefully deterred in the future. 

A Centreville woman faces vote-fraud charges that accuse her of improperly marking an absentee ballot and perjury charges for allegedly making a false statement.

The tip came into the Voter Integrity Hotline. It was investigated by the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department.

“We follow up on any complaint we get out of the Voter Integrity Hotline, then we make our case,” said Sheriff Rick Watson.

This is not the first case either.  Because of the work of all three groups (the Hotline, the Sheriff and the State’s Attorney), vote fraud in the future in this part of Illinois may be stopped.  Unlike most of the country, at a minimum, vote fraudsters will know they are in danger of being prosecuted.  As the State’s Attorney has said:

Kelly has said that he believes defendants convicted multiple times of vote fraud should face mandatory jail time.

While this may not seem like a big deal, this is actually a very strong stance compared to other places in the country where they threaten the police for even investigating vote fraud.  When everyone (the public, the police, and prosecutors) are committed to fair and honest elections, everyone wins, except those who commit vote fraud.