Trump made a campaign promise on Saturday, September 7, 2024, to go after election cheaters. He posted it on Truth Social, his social media platform, and it goes like this:
“The 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again. Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”
(Read story here.) Keeping this promise could be difficult, as elections are conducted by states, most violations are state crimes, and state authorities are responsible for prosecuting them; so it’s difficult to see what a president could do to stamp out this type of crime.
Besides, election cheaters are already being prosecuted. If these prosecutions are rare, that’s because voting fraud is rare; but generally speaking, the few people who do vote twice, vote a dead relative’s ballot, or otherwise vote illegally face consequences when they’re caught. Here are some real-life examples:
- Colorado resident Barry Morphew was fined $600 for voting his missing wife’s ballot (see story here).
- Arizona resident Tracy Kay McKee was fined $1,730 and given 2 years’ probation for voting her dead mother’s ballot (see story here).
- New Hampshire resident Todd Krysiak was fined $4,960 and given a suspended 90-day jail sentencing for voting in two states (see story here).
- Nevada resident Donald Kirk Hartle was fined $2,000 and given probation for voting his dead wife’s ballot (see story here).
- Pennsylvania resident Bruce Bartman got 5 years of probation for using his dead mother to vote twice (see story here).
- Colorado resident Steve Curtis got 4 years of probation and 200 hours of community service for voting his ex-wife’s ballot (see story here).
- Georgia resident Brian K. Pritchard, an ex-felon, was fined $5,000 for voting illegally in 9 elections (see story here).
You see? Election fraud, when it’s real, is already being prosecuted. And as you can see above, of all these cheaters who voted twice for Trump, none got jail time.