A Republican official helping lead the handling of local elections in a county along New York’s Atlantic coast was caught fraudulently obtaining and submitting mail-in ballots in the names of evidently around half a dozen local voters and was set to plead guilty, reports indicated.
The official is Jason T. Schofield, an elections commissioner in Rensselaer County, and he would also be resigning from his leadership post in connection with his guilty plea, per reports. Schofield’s attorney Danielle Neroni confirmed the news, saying Schofield is “scheduled for a change of plea and with his change of plea he will be resigning from his position,” according to the Albany Times Union. He will also be cooperating in the ongoing FBI investigation. He’s not the only official currently or recently involved in local politics who was accused of ballot fraud. Kimberly Ashe-McPherson, a now past city council member in the city of Troy, also pleaded guilty to similar charges after submitting fraudulent ballots in elections last year.
Ashe-McPherson may have committed her criminal acts in cooperation with or at least connection to Schofield. She “received guidance from an unnamed official at the Rensselaer County Board of Elections,” The New York Times summarized in a September report based on earlier info. There is also an investigation into the county’s handling of absentee ballots by New York state Attorney General Letitia James.
A press release from the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York specified that voters whose personal details Schofield used for the fraudulent ballots in local elections were unaware of the nature of what he was doing. That earlier press release, which was last updated in September of this year, adds that Schofield repeatedly visited victimized local voters to obtain their signatures for submission back to election authorities with the ballots, presumably using a mix of just outright deception and the air of authority to get those targeted to put pen to page. Early reports didn’t specify the charges to which Schofield would be admitting, although he was originally charged with a dozen felonies involving fraudulently possessing and using a means of identification.
Each count carried up to five years in prison and potentially huge fines if eventually found guilty. Elections held last year included a slew of local races, including county-wide positions and posts in the cities of Rensselaer and Troy. The county is near Albany. Trump has, of course, expended a large amount of energy complaining about supposed threats of systematic fraud in mail-in voting, although it’s unclear if he’s made any public comment at all about this (isolated) instance of actual ballot fraud involving at least two Republican officials that authorities uncovered and pursued.
