August 4, 2023

Republicans Keep Being Charged for Meddling With Voting Equipment

In trying to prove voter fraud, they allegedly committed felonies.

Brynn Anderson, File/AP

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Former President Trump’s prosecution for alleged conspiracy wasn’t the only election meddling case this week.

Two Michigan Republicans were arraigned Tuesday on felony charges related to tampering with voting equipment in an effort to prove that the 2020 presidential election was rigged. Matt DePerno, a former Michigan Republican state attorney general candidate, was charged with conspiracy and undue possession of a voting machine, while former Michigan state representative Daire Rendon was charged with conspiracy to commit undue possession of a voting machine and false pretenses.

On Thursday, another Michigan attorney, Stefanie Lambert, was charged with improper possession of a voting machine, conspiracy to improperly possess a voting machine, conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to a computer system and willfully damaging a voting machine.

Perpetrators of the scheme allegedly brought five voting tabulators to a hotel room and performed “tests” on them. Some of the defendants claim that local election clerks willingly offered up the voting machines for testing.

The case bears some similarities to the one against Tina Peters, a Colorado county clerk who allegedly illegally obtained election information that wound up online. Peters unsuccessfully ran for Colorado secretary of state last year. DePerno’s Michigan attorney general campaign also failed, though not as spectacularly as Peters’. In Georgia, Trump attorney Sidney Powell—one of Trump’s alleged co-conspirators in the plot to overturn the 2020 election—reportedly oversaw a team that copied voter information from machines in Michigan and Georgia.

In each of these cases, the most vocal Republican opponents of voting fraud are the ones allegedly tampering with voting equipment. It’s no wonder that prosecutors in swing states are trying to make an example of election meddlers as 2024 nears. Luckily, it’s easy not to become embroiled in such a scheme. If you encounter a voting machine in any place other than a polling place—like, say, a hotel room—run.

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