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Two Men Charged For Voter Fraud in California
Two men were charged with voter fraud in California last Tuesday. Election officials charged them for allegedly submitting 8,000 false voter registration applications. While the news came out recently, the incident happened much earlier. The Los Angeles County elections office uncovered the fraud attempts in October. Officers sent the case to prosecutors and arraignment for the pair happened Tuesday.
RELATED: Another County Finds Uncounted Votes in Georgia
41 counts
Carlos Antonio DeBourbon Montenegro received 41 counts, including eight for voter fraud. Also, he got charged with four counts of “procuring and offering a false forged instrument.” He also received four misdemeanors. They were for “interfering with a prompt transfer of a completed affidavit.”
Meanwhile, Arevalo got eight counts of voter fraud and one for conspiracy to commit voter fraud. He also received four counts of procuring and offering a false or forged instrument. Additionally, he also got four counts for interfering with a prompt transfer of a completed affidavit.
Running For Mayor
Carlos Antonio De Bourbon Montenegro, 53, wanted to become mayor of Hawthorne, California. He asked Arevalo to help him rig the voter's list in his favor. The two men plotted to register 8,000 “fictitious, nonexistent or deceased” voters. The two received the mail-in ballots at Montenegro’s home address and three PO boxes. Montenegro is also accused of filing 32 fraudulent signatures on write-in candidate nominations. He did so to support his bid to run for mayor.
Hawthorne has a population of 86,000, including 44,000 registered voters. If successful, the pair’s scheme would increase voter count by 20%. However, Montenegro’s name did not make it to the ballot. This indicated officials got wind of the scheme before the elections.
Rejected signatures
Between July to October, Montenegro launched an effort to get on the Hawthorne ballot. But, every time he submitted the required signatures, the city clerk threw out some of them. The clerk validated 18 of 41 names submitted. Afterward, he tried to become eligible as a write-in candidate. Again, the clerk rejected many of the submitted signatures.
Montenegro said he turned in a petition with more than 40 names. But, the clerk only qualified 18. He insisted he knew at least 20 people who signed the petition. “I’m trying to find out what I can do,” he said. “It just seems really strange.”
Checks and Balances
Los Angeles County Clerk Dean C. Logan is LA’s top election official. In a video call with NBC LA, he said “Our checks and balances worked. We detected the oddities in these forms. We identified that there was something off with that.” He added: “We reported it. It was investigated fairly quickly by our law enforcement.”
According to the criminal complaint, the suspects mailed twenty-nine vote-by-mail ballots in early October. Logan said that “as soon as we detected the suspicious nature of these, those were then flagged.” He added that even if these ballots returned, officials will identify them. Consequently, they would flag these ballots and withhold them from counting.
15 years in Prison
If Montenegro receives a conviction on all charges, he faces a sentence of 15 years and 8 months in prison. Attempts to contact Montenegro by phone did not succeed. Also, court records do not show an attorney assigned to him.
Meanwhile, Arevalo faces a seven-year prison term if convicted. During the arraignment, Montenegro and Arevalo both pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Extremely rare
Election experts believe that voter fraud is extremely rare. Logan affirmed that his office takes allegations of voter fraud with utmost seriousness. Hence, protecting the integrity of elections is paramount.
In a statement delivered Tuesday, Logan said: “Voters should ultimately have confidence that their votes are meaningful and will be counted, and that their institutions are secure. We will continue to be aggressive in seeking the prosecution of anyone who attempts to undermine these efforts and encourage residents to report any suspicious activity.”
Widespread Voter fraud or Isolated Incident?
The Los Angeles incident comes as President Trump claims widespread voter fraud. However, officials point to this case as an example of the difficulty of beating the system. Given Montenegro's intentions to become Mayor, signs point to the latter. At the same time, Montenegro’s modus shows how voter fraud can be one negligent official away.
Watch this as News Now from FOX reports that Voter fraud is uncovered in California:
Loading ...Do you think this episode of voter fraud in California is an isolated incident? Or, is it a part of systemic voter fraud? Let us know what you think by sharing your thoughts in the comment section below.
17 Comments
No i don’t believe it was i believe that quite a lot of voter fraud has been happening and news is sitting on the results.
Yeah its systemic alright. And when there is an audit, the auditors are not vetted to be sure they are not biased for/against any candidate so the audit is a waste of time. Georgia needs to be looked at closely for this problem in their recent recount.
Voter fraud is rampant in every state, trump won by a landslide,
Perhaps the number of registered voters in each state should be reported FIRST and make this number public. Then let the election take place and see how many ballots are received by each state.
Agree with those above.
Voter fraud is not just rampant it is also bring totally ignored by the media making it far worse. No one trusts the voting system now because no one trusts the media to be honest.
In the end this instance was for a simple mayoral race.
The guy in this article had just one accomplice to help him snd they were obviously amateurs in the steal votes crime.
In the nationwide races there are hundreds if not thousands of people who are very willing and able to set up much bigger fraudulent voter systems.
Because they feel they won’t be caught and even if they are caught then they won’t face much punishment if any.
Not to mention the voting machine software that was created by the CIA to elect despots in foreign countries that the USA backed. It’s been used to swing elections all over the world for decades.
The entire state count should be thrown out, and deducted from each candidate’s electoral college totals. I believe in having to show up in person, with official photo ID. No ID, no vote. Persons found to have committed fraud should get life at hard labor.
Voter fraud has been going on for decades at least. Most have been silenced by the media: tv, internet, and paper. Even those reported are not very public. A few frauders might get slight fines or sentences but it continues on and on. Those who state these frauds are laughed at and mocked (example, President Trump). The punishment is not great enough and it does not get to the root of the source. One of the easiest frauds is the mail-in ballot where the person can not be seen with the I’D picture—easy fraud,right? Trust is lessoned.
8000 registrations he really must want someone to win
Voter fraud is rampant all over this great country and the Trump campaign should not stop until they prove it, along with our Attorney General Bill Barr. We absolutely should not allow this evil to win this battle.
yes,it’s systematic fraud
You meant evil trump?
Democrats Will Lie, Steal And Cheat The System To Take Over. Biden Has Been In Government For 47 Years And Has Done Nothing To Improve It,Look At Pilocy. Biden Isn’t My President And Will Never Be.Im Putting My Foot Down After Putting Up With Obama For 8 Years. With The Abortion Bill Biden Signed He Has 60 Million Babys Deaths Sitting On His Door Steps.
yeah no voter fraud .Is it possible for a democrat to tell the truth ?
Voter fraud is like the wind. You can’t always see it, but you can sure feel it and see the damage it does to everyone.
Oh it’s all over ! I saw on Facebook people were selling their vote ! LITERALLY for sale so yeah it’s fraudulent .
I want to be heard, that you can bring up the case, Why can’t you guess re-erect the
Why can’t we just re-elect the President again and this one well be the right one, President Thump.